A few minutes ago, the darkness behind the eyes had their world pierced by those that wished to escape the sky’s shrouded hours, but it felt more like a blink for the small Grass-type, who woke up in the world illuminated with its usual shades.
Sanvu awoke, groggy as he had just obviously been asleep, but no matter how much he looked around, he was indeed lying in Pachuku’s house and outside was indeed morning.
He touched his face; he was without a doubt awake and not dreaming up the house. He sat up, lost in thought, or rather, because of the lack of thoughts as his senses returned to him.
‘I still recall that… awful nightmare. It’s like I was actually there…’ Sanvu thought, idly watching the room turn brighter. ‘Was I just… worried about Pachuku or something? That might’ve been it. Just worrying for nothing. No point in scrutinizing it.’
He checked, yep, no improvement in his memory from yesterday. They’d picked up some sort of slip that he did recognize, but for some reason, all information related to it came up blank when he tried thinking about it. All that he could recall was that it made him feel a familiar unpleasant feeling of some unknown kind.
‘That might be relevant somehow… maybe the things I can’t remember are related to how I get back… maybe?’
Those thoughts were interrupted by the shuffling of the now awake squirrel in the room.
And thus the morning began.
They ate, and some gabs passed back and forth. Then it was off to Mindscape, to be ready for the next mission.
As they walked, a thought came to Sanvu’s mind: Pachuku lived quite close to Mindscape for someone who hadn’t been allowed to join a few days prior. They were already out front by the time he had started contemplating what that could mean.
Upon walking in, the Natu eyed them, and he looked much more excited than usual, his eyes were wide instead of their usual squint.
“Ah, Minders, I have heard you’re to be seen in the guest room,” He noticed Sanvu’s usual look of confusion as he talked, “That’s the room you were taken to when you came here to sign yourself on. You know how to get there, right?”
“To the left?” Pachuku interjected, “Thanks!”
And Pachuku ran right past, leaving Sanvu to follow behind at a moderate pace to their left. Inside the room, two familiar Pokemon were waiting, and they both turned when they heard Pachuku’s bounding steps.
“Hey, it’s you two!” Pachuku blurted. Sanvu followed in shortly after, panting. He smiled at the two Pokemon, who were the ones they’d rescued.
“Hey, you’re the Minders, right? I just hope I got your team name right, I’d hope to not mess that up so quickly after you helped us, aheh…” The Pikachu rambled, but then quickly bowed his head. “I.. no, we really wanted to thank you, for all that you did to help us…”
The Pichu behind him also bowed her own head, “So really, thank you!”
“Aww, it’s no big deal!” Pachuku commented, beaming from each of his bright yellow cheeks, “That’s what we’re here for!”
The Pikachu nodded, continuing, “We really wanted to see you off before you went. I don’t know how I could repay you, so, I hope you just… truly understand how much of a help you were.”
Sanvu nodded back, “Try not to go back in there, if you can help it. You’re very welcome.”
“Oh, we won’t!” Peko agreed, “They’re always talking about how things are getting worse, and I hardly believed them until all that just happened. It won’t happen again, if we can help it!”
The Pichu walked forward. “M…my name is Piki. Th-thank you for bringing me here so they could help me…”
The Minders introduced themselves back, and so once their thanks were exchanged, the conversation began to come to a close.
“So, you guys live in town, right?” Sanvu queried to the two kids.
“Yup!” Peko answered, “You’ll be seeing a lot more of us around, since we live past the store!”
“That’s good; we should probably get to work, wouldn’t wanna keep another one of you waiting!” Pachuku joked, smiling.
“Anyway, thank you again!” Peko smiled back, “We should get back too; mother must be worried sick.”
The two kids left after some smiles and gratitude. They were waved off as the Minders remained in the room.
“Just what I like to see from you.”
It was Didra, who wore a look of satisfaction in her every step as she approached the entrance. “That’s the kind of thing we at Mindscape very much appreciate. You could say they’re the fuel to keep us going.”
“You… heard all that?” Sanvu faltered, a bit taken aback, “You certainly weren’t here a moment ago.”
“I don’t have the capacity to read minds, but I can talk through them,” She explained, “And within this building, I can choose exactly who I want to listen to at any one time, as well.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Memories and such are difficult to alter let alone view, but telepathy is a skill all Psychic types can engage with,” Didra continued, “But it hardly needs to concern you. I’m not particularly looking to enter anyone’s head for unsavoury purposes in these climates.”
“Hey, Didra,” Pachuku piped up, “Do you know if like, Amnesiacs could be inside the town?”
“I haven’t heard of any, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of the town being the target of yet another incident like with the young Electric-types,” She clasped her hands together. “Your mission for today is a bit simpler. There’s an item I’d like you to retrieve from a dungeon that our most recent Amnesiac lost.”
“I thought Piki was our only Amnesiac?” Sanvu commented.
“The Treaders yesterday were assigned to find someone who had gone missing. They were found, but according to them when their memory was restored, they were carrying around an important item, but lost it after being attacked by the force which made them become an Amnesiac.”
“So what’s the item?” Pachuku asked, particularly eager.
“It’s described as a purple and white scarf. I’ve been told it was a Sneak Scarf, an item particularly useful for dungeon exploration,” Didra explained.
Pachuku seemed to understand in less than a heartbeat, nodding profusely. “Oh yeah, the one that prevents enemy Pokemon from knowing you’re nearby when they’re asleep.”
“Yes, hence why I’m providing you this job. Given your item bag from yesterday, I had hoped to give this to you easily. You’ll be going to the nearby Mystical Woods as well, but there’s something to keep in mind.”
“What’s that?” Sanvu wondered, “And where is it?”
“So you know where I found you, right?” Pachuku turned, eager to explain, “Just further the other way from where I found you is a dungeon. It’s totally weak, like, the absolute weakest apparitions and everything. Totally nothing like yesterday.”
“Yes, well, now there’s an added detail. Apparently, according to the Treaders, they noticed the occurrence of strange blue bubble-like orbs wisping around. This happened shortly before rescuing the Amnesiac that they were assigned for, so there wasn’t enough time to investigate. Since you’ll be going to the dungeon they entered, I only want to know if the badges react to them while you’re in there.”
“And we’re not investigating these orbs because…?” Pachuku wondered.
“I have already sent them to prepare for investigations of these orbs in thorough. Your job is to retrieve the item and little else other than that quest I gave you.”
Pachuku lightened up immediately, “Sure!”
Sanvu wasn’t as excited, but didn’t say anything.
“After yesterday’s mission, it would do good to give you a breather,” She responded, “Even the smaller missions are just as important as the bigger ones.”
“Alright, well, let’s go prep!” Pachuku bounded past, leaving Sanvu to run after him, only stopping to look at Didra. She could read his worry without him saying a word.
“I’m mindful of your circumstances even if I’m not sure exactly of their processes. Rest assured; I won’t send you on anything too difficult, Sanvu.”
Sanvu smiled, nodded and ran right after Pachuku just as he was beginning to only see the white tail as it bounced off in the distance with its carrier.
Pachuku had instead not gone outside the door, but to the training area.
Pachuku had run in, barely passing the ‘mons at the entrance. Sanvu was a bit more courteous, waving to the Gothorita who looked a bit relieved that someone was bothering to wave.
“Bit overeager, he is, huh?” She remarked.
“I don’t know what has him so excited. We’re assigned to basically a fetch quest. I’m not particularly thrilled,” Sanvu muttered.
“Well, it’s good to prepare yourself anyways. Sometimes even the easier missions can have something to look forward to.”
He wandered in a little further. Pachuku was using one of the dummies to test Discharge. He swore he could see more sparks than usual, though there were still only two primary rays, one aimed at the target, and the other jostled about at various spots on the ground.
So after training for a few minutes, the door opened, and revealed two more figures. Sanvu turned to see who it was, and vaguely recalled both of them from memory as the pig and bird from the other day.
“Oh, there they are!” the pig said. At that, Pachuku turned around as well.
“Who are you?” Sanvu prodded, the two of them entering the room.
“Hi, hi, we were looking for you!” The pig grinned. “We’re the Treaders! I’m Roin, a Spoink, and this is Ritza, a Spritzee. We heard about yesterday and we really wanted to see what kinds of new recruits we got!”
“We’d have caught you yesterday, but you were out at the dungeon before we could hear from you ourselves… We had to hear from the Tenditions about you, ahaha…” Ritza mumbled.
“So how much do you know about us?” Sanvu asked.
“Only what we know from Didra, and of course, Oshee yesterday,” Roin clarified. Pachuku walked over, but he was considerably slower than he had been a short while ago. “Just, how you joined and all, and your names.”
“We’re really proud of you! Didra was gushing about you earlier, going on about how Pachuku being rejected for so long was a mistake. Two Amnesiac missions a success in a row!” Ritza beamed, floating a little higher, “Honestly, it is strange why she didn’t accept you earlier, but at least that’s in the past now, right?”
‘I knew he’d been rejected for a while, but that in and of itself seems suspicious. Something about this is really not adding up, she rejects him on the basis of being alone, and then gushes about him after performing only two successful missions with me? Maybe I’m just not used to the praise.’
Sanvu continued pondering, but he otherwise didn’t press on it. “So, you were here to train like us?”
“We were gonna head to the Mystical Woods dungeon, so I guess we won’t be quite living it up like yesterday, huh, wasn’t that a dungeon, right Sanvu?” When Pachuku mentioned Sanvu’s name, he wiggled the paw closest to Sanvu, as if he were ‘nudging’ him from across the room.
“Yeah, the almost-disaster with the bird.”
“Bird?” Ritza echoed, oblivious to the irony from Sanvu’s perspective.
“Oh, right, you guys don’t know what birds are, uh…”
“He calls a lot of Flying-type Pokemon birds,” Pachuku interjected.
“You’re… human?” Roin questioned.
“Sure, but … how did you know-“ Sanvu added, waving his hands.
“The odd word,” Roin explained, “I’ve heard that’s something to look out for.”
“That’s okay!” Ritza interjected, “There’ve been a lot of weird things happening, and humans appearing certainly wouldn’t be out of the ordinary!”
“It… wouldn’t..?” Sanvu doubted.
“No, because humans have historically appeared at random, but mostly when there’s a crisis. Not to say they’re the cause, but sometimes they’ve fixed things in our world. There’re a few legends associated with them,” Roin explained. “Of course, it’s unwise to assume all humans are the same, but, I don’t think many here will judge you for it.”
“I just figured it’s unwise because it’s not very… tactful to go around blurting it out.”
“Well, I’m not sure about the town, but I’m on your side here,” Roin was lightly pumping the ground at this, bouncing on the spot without springing for a moment.
“You mentioned Mystical Woods right? We’re going there too!” Ritza exclaimed.
“Didra told us to watch out for… blue orbs or something, and that you were going to be there too?”
“Yup, we’ve gotta investigate why they randomly appeared and if there’s anything to ‘em.” Roin informed. “If you’re going there too, though, we should team up!”
“Is there, like, a rule to that?” Sanvu asked.
“Not particularly, but if your mission is reached before we’ve spent sufficient time there, you’ll have to come back without us,” Ritza explained, “Not like that’ll be a problem, though, right?”
“Yeah, this’ll probably do us good since yesterday was quite hectic for us,” Pachuku remarked. “We’ve gotta find an item.”
“The Sneak Scarf, right?” Roin answered, sighing, “We wanted to go find it ourselves, but Didra already said she’d assigned it to you guys, and while we get to investigate the area, we’re to, like, investigate secret passages and stuff, which might not line up with your task…”
“It might do us good if we stick together for as much as possible though. Bit weird how we have two missions assigned to the same spot.”
“Well let’s make use of it!” Roin bounced, “We’ll get our items and meet you there, huh!”
After some agreements and the packing of various items, the group of four met each other near the dungeon.
*Music: Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity – Unused Star Cave Remix
After passing the barrier to the dungeon, they were met with a forest that much resembled the first dungeon Sanvu had been in, though instead of the trees being placed so close together so as to form a wall, the ‘walls’ were instead large cliffs with trees on top of them bunched together. The cliffs had in them what looked like white stones that looked like they were coated with something that looked almost like glitter that glinted and sparkled in every other colour. Everything had a soft greenish hue.
“What’re those rocks?” Sanvu asked.
“Just rocks. The glitter’s some kind of dungeon residue, so it makes them look all pretty and sparkly. They’re pretty well stuck in there though. It’s a real shame, apparently some ‘mons in town think they could look cool,” Roin explained, “Well, we’d better get started.”
“So, given you guys are looking for an item, should we comb every floor?” Ritza wondered, “The orbs and potential-secret-passages were up past the 8th floor before, but who knows of how they’ve changed since we were last here…”
“This dungeon’s so easy we could probably do a quick search everywhere, yeah,” Pachuku commented, before running ahead to check. Sanvu followed behind. “Though, weren’t those rocks like, different colours before? Wasn’t that why the dungeon was named Mystical Woods?”
He pointed at the rocks, which still bored a white hue on top. The bottom of these stones, if visible from their position, were coated with a gold-like glitter, though where Pachuku was pointing was the topmost part, which he looked suspicious of, scrutinizing it.
“I’m pretty sure they were always white,” Ritza responded. “But yeah, yesterday, they were looking prettier…”
Pachuku looked at Sanvu with an expression that read that he wasn’t buying it. But he kept quiet.
“So, this dungeon, the types…. what are they…” Sanvu murmured, mostly to himself, though Roin was quick to notice.
“Mostly Psychic, Normal, maybe some Flying-types. Makes it a real slog since it’s mostly neutral damage for us, but for some reason the apparitions here are super weak, so it’s not much of a problem.”
Sanvu grunted in agreement as the four squeezed through a small hallway. Upon reaching the next rectangular shaped room, Pachuku dug around for various items, finding one Chesto berry, just in the corner of the room.
Upon entering, mist rose from the floor, forming a round creature. It resembled a mouse, but it was blue and only stood on two feet, with a bulbous tail forming the back. It bounced menacingly towards the group. Pachuku had already swapped the berry for some more of the rocks that they’d packed back at home, and after throwing one, the Azurill flinched, before Pachuku slammed it with a Quick Attack.
“I blink and it’s gone,” Sanvu laughed, with Pachuku joining in a second later.
“Would you believe me if I told you I was actually going easy on it?” Pachuku admitted, looking at the spot where it had faded away, “That’s some strength for you.”
“So if that’s the case, what makes people so scared of this place?” Sanvu inquired.
“It’s the uncertainty, I’d guess,” Ritza piped in, “Sure, the rules are easy enough to follow, dungeon apparitions going down by breathing on them and all, but there’ve been instances where the dungeon will throw something way more challenging at you, and there’s no way to predict when that will happen.”
“Especially with this Amnesiac thing, being in any dungeon could be grounds for losing your whole life in a second,” Roin pointed out, “Imagine making it to the end, and then you’re trapped with no way out, and without a badge, that’s brutal.”
They eventually found the stairs, and proceeded through several floors, with no sign of the scarf, nor any orbs. Battling proceeded as it had been prior for the group; the various Pokemon that appeared, like Taillow or Starly, being dealt with by the Treaders or Pachuku, and the others, like the Azurill, Wynaut and Igglybuff apparitions that were being shared between the Minders. Pachuku was pretty well gathering up a lot of items though, to the point Sanvu eventually had to tell him off.
“She said to look for a scarf, not any odd thing we find on the ground. Are we even gonna have room?”
“Okay, fine, but you’ll fit it in. We’re not working with any limitations except the space, so not sure why you’re worried, I thought you wanted to learn about items.”
“I think he’d appreciate it if you did slow down, though, just a little, anyways,” Roin pointed out.
Pachuku winked at the Psychic-type. “Maybe we should be faster, then! This place isn’t going to search itself!”
Everyone groaned until he clarified that it was a joke and that they continue their current approach.
With Sanvu on item duty (besides Pachuku bounding ahead for one item or another), the floors were short and easy. All of them made easy pickings of the wild folk, so the real challenge was actually clearing the entire floor so then they didn’t miss the item that they were looking for. All the while, Roin would chat up with Sanvu about virtually anything, Ritza often keeping her eyes on Pachuku, and they often looked at the walls with the glittering rocks. Sanvu had touched one at some point, but they were right; it looked to be a creation of the dungeon itself, and couldn’t be easily dislodged from the walls.
“I don’t remember them looking like this,” Pachuku finally stated, with Roin simply smiling.
“Well, you were searching for somebody to join with, weren’t you? That would’ve meant less time for dungeon dives, so you might not have seen it as well.”
“I did end up in here a few times though. They definitely looked more colourful.”
“I have no stake in this but is this important?” Sanvu wondered, trying to not let the impatience show in his voice.
“I’m just… worried,” Pachuku muttered, glancing about. “It wasn’t long ago that I was in here, and those rocks weren’t so… white before.”
“Maybe it’s just your usual deviance?” Ritza bobbed in the air as she spoke.
“Usual deviance?” Sanvu was incredulous, raising an eyebrow at the pink bird. “What kind of deviance is usual?”
“Well, they’re a different colour, but nothing else is really different? The species of apparitions are the same, their strength the same, we were here yesterday and they were white then too,” Roin’s voice was unwavering and calm, “We were at a dungeon a while ago and that one deviates by changing the leaves on trees opposite to the season outside sometimes. I wouldn’t worry about it?”
“What about before yesterday, for this dungeon?” Pachuku probed.
“When were you last here? It could’ve been weeks.”
“Maybe the world is just weird,” Sanvu stated matter-of-factly. Roin looked agreeable, nodding along with that statement without a word.
“Well that could go either way…” Pachuku mumbled, “But fine, I guess.”
Along the way, besides the odd look around and the occasional pushover, their amusement was laughing with Sanvu about the strange names of Pokemon as he was learning of their names for the first time. Strange to him, anyway, but a Girafarig here and a Chingling there and it was more amusement than a mission.
~~
This continued for a while, until they reached the 8th floor, where the orbs were floating about. The ‘orbs’ looked instead like strange bubbles of light that floating much higher than the group could reach, except for maybe Ritza, but she wasn’t much higher than they were. They each had a blueish hue, though not much else they could see from their position.
Though, one thing was indeed certain. The badges were flickering with light, on and off. It almost resembled a malfunctioning light-bulb in the frequency of these flickers, but it was spotty enough for it to look more like a functional type of flickering.
“What do you say, Amnesiac-like?” Sanvu guessed
“Maybe it’s related? The badges are going whack.”
“They look like it, but I don’t detect anything different about them besides the visual. Ritz, you wanna go and check if it isn’t cause of our height?”
“I’ll try?”
She flew closer, being careful not to touch it. It looked wobbly enough to pop if she tried, but she only flew a little higher, then turned around. No change to the badge.
“Maybe if there is Amnesiac stuff in here, it’s not them?”
“They look like bubbles.” Sanvu noted
“They look more solid than bubbles. Bubbles usually have that bouncy look to them; these look… nothing like that,” Roin pointed out, “They look almost exactly like an Orb from a dungeon, but just, floating.”
Pachuku peered at the Petrify Orb still in the bag, and both of the Minders could tell the similarity, they did indeed resemble the idea of one if it were perhaps empty, but such an idea hadn’t crossed their minds.
“Well maybe we should just be aler-“ Sanvu started, before Ritza yelped.
“What is it?!” Roin bounced, but Ritza in the air was backing off.
“What’s… that?! It’s like… a picture?”
“A picture?” Pachuku echoed, before Ritza continued.
“Yeah, i-it’s like, a reflection or something, but it’s like, rippling water? What in the world are these?!”
“So, like, there’s water in the reflection?” Sanvu was interested, even if he had to crane his neck up to see it.
“Oh yeah, it’s like… some lake? Or a river. Look, you can see the sun above it too!”
Roin sprung up really high. He touched one, but it merely bounced back, and he sprung back down. “Well at least we can confirm touching them isn’t dangerous…”
“Did you see anything?” Pachuku questioned, Roin bouncing again.
“I saw some kind of hill overlooking some water. But, it’s just an image, and it wasn’t exactly real clear. I wonder what these are of?”
“Well, that’s nice, but we’d better proceed,” Sanvu commented, with the others following suit.
The orb-bubbles continued bouncing about as they went on with their search. Around the hallways that went in a circle, they noticed lots of little offroads. They each lead to dead ends.
“Was the dungeon this off-track before?” Sanvu inquired.
“A little? Certainly not this much,” Roin pointed out.
They approached the room with the stairs, and noticed the orbs seemed to bounce around it like it were some trampoline. They were careful in their approach, except when an apparition of an Azurill appeared and Pachuku had to slam it in the direction of the stairs, which caused more of the bubbles to bounce around.
At this height, they could see more of the images a little better since they were almost at eye level, Sanvu could in particular see something akin to a hill, but it was more of some kind of raised cliff. The image wasn’t particularly clear, it was shrouded and the images were all bathed in an odd blue colour that was almost like a silhouette or filter but not quite, but he could make out waves on the water and some kind of settlement right near it. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was.
“Some kind of town?”
“Not one I’ve heard of.”
“Definitely looks like it’d be close though. The water’s definitely present.” Pachuku noted.
“Why? What makes the water special?”
“We live on the Water Continent,” Pachuku explained, “It’s named as such for its abundance of water. We live in the woods in the general southwest, but there’re loads of rivers and ponds and lakes and stuff around, and the orbs show somewhere that looks kinda close, cause there’s so much of it.”
“So there’d be another town like Mentage?”
“Correct!” Roin bounced. “But dungeons surround Mentage on most ends. So nobody would really be able to check if there are very many towns outside.”
“But why’s the dungeon showing us this town?” Ritza wondered. Nobody answered.
“Good question, maybe it’s something to note, the orbs show some kind of town.”
All the while, the badges continued to flicker in and out. They eventually managed to get to the 9th floor, which had a round circular room. The orb-bubbles were here too, but their appearance often flickered from round orbs to skewed, glitchy shapes. The images in them looked warped, if they could see them. The flickering on the badges was now less intermittent, blinking much slower.
“Whatever this Amnesiac force is, the badges can definitely see it now,” Sanvu observed, as Pachuku was rounding up a bunch of Oran Berries that had lined the wall upon entry.
“Well, at least we won’t be going down easy to it, if it’s some kind of threat!” Pachuku joked, stuffing the berries in. Ritza flew down to take a few and put it with their supplies. They proceeded down the one hallway they could see directly in front of them.
Roin had his paw on his badge, but was frowning. They’d entered another rectangular shaped room, with nothing in it, and it was relatively small. Two paths lead off directly in front; one curving left, the other to the right.
“What’s up?”
“Oh, not much, but this is almost the end of the dungeon, and there aren’t many weird things of note yet. Just badge flashing and that we can see a town inside the orbs. I wonder if it’ll be much to report.”
Sanvu didn’t respond, before Ritza leaned in, in a hushed tone, to whisper to the Grass-type, “Before yesterday, most of our missions were total busts. We’re hoping this isn’t some kind of punishment or something, cause we’ve had to loop this dungeon for a while.”
“Huh, and you’ve been here longer than us, right?”
“Only by like, a number of days ago.” Roin groaned, “We haven’t had much luck, and everyone’s hoping on Mindscape as a whole to solve the problems that’ve been piling up lately and…” he sprung limply, as if attempting to hunch. “We almost though we were gonna end up like Pachuku if we hadn’t essentially gotten lucky, yesterday.”
“Would she really kick you out for failing a mission like that?”
Pachuku was getting a bit twitchy. “She… kinda likes Psychic-types though. I don’t think she’d have a problem with you, at least, like that.”
“Oh, so Pachuku was suggesting she’d favour your type? Isn’t that like… biased?” Sanvu implied. He didn’t want to bring up ‘racism’ and the context that that would require in a world where every creature had different anatomy.
“I’m pretty sure those’re just rumours,” Roin continued, “I may be Psychic-type, but I don’t think we’re that valuable. Especially given how useful various types could be in this whole ordeal. I don’t think there’s any preference, you just need to be able to explore well, which, well, what, two-three successes counting yesterday? We weren’t exactly… that.”
“At least you were working at all; I had to run around to find somebody!”
“It probably would’ve been us all things considered.”
“Guys!” Ritza interrupted. “Left or right?”
They both pointed in opposite directions, with Pachuku pointing left, Roin pointing the other way. Sanvu was looking towards the left path, and Ritza fluttered that way herself before she bounced back around. “I was thinking left too! Sorry Roin, maybe another time!” She smiled in his direction in a cute manner before turning around.
“We’d have to pick both anyways,” he murmured, before he fell right behind Sanvu. Ritza was out front, with Pachuku tailing her. Roin was at the very end, and Sanvu gave a sympathetic glance.
“Yesterday was… hard on me too. I don’t know anything about this place, and the wind hurt like nothing else. It took a rock to take that bird down, and that was with Pachuku there. I don’t know if that helps but…”
“No, yeah, I get it; sometimes I just need to remind myself that every little bit helps even if we do very little in the grand scheme of things,” He shied away. “I don’t often get my frustration out.”
“It’s not good to keep it in, anyways.” Sanvu reassured.
“For a human who knew nothing about this world, those sure are some wise words you said there,” Roin smiled. Both were interrupted by shouts from up ahead.
“Whoa-what?!”
“There it is! I knew there was one up here!”
Pachuku and Ritza were in awe at something at the end, which brought attention to the two at the back, Sanvu had to peer around them, while Roin sprung up, hoping to see it from above.
“It’s one of the multicoloured rocks! I knew they weren’t totally gone!”
“Huh, this one indeed does look pretty… crazy.”
Instead of white, the colours of many of the small rocks made the rocks almost resemble opals with the shine looking much prettier, almost iridescent in its sheen. The underneath was still golden, if the rock was jutting out to which an underneath could be seen, but it was much more vibrant than the ones they’d seen prior.
“These… these were what all the others looked like, I swear!” Pachuku asserted, pointing with a paw. “This place was named after them, cause they made the dungeon look all kooky and weird!”
“Huh, they certainly didn’t all look like this when we were here. They just looked like the other white ones.” Roin pointed out. They turned around to leave, when Pachuku turned around, only to see something that left each of them speechless.
They’d glimmered with colour for a second, but the colour vanished, as if it were being bleached out of the air. Up above, the orbs continued to glitch, slightly moreso when the rocks were fully evaporated of colour, leaving only the white hue the others bored.
“Somethings… wiping the dungeon clear or something…!” Pachuku breathed.
“That’s pretty significant!” Roin gasped, bouncing back and forth. “So… somethings… taking the colour out, and turning it into those orb-bubble things?”
“Only question is what…”
“Could be the dungeon itself moving… but who knows!” Ritza pondered. She slumped after a while. “But Pachuku was right… the dungeon did look prettier, and now it’s being washed away…”
“Yeah…”
And little more was said.
“I’m sorry for doubting you,” Roin finally said, to Pachuku.
“About what?”
“About the dungeon. You were trying to help. I don’t know what I was thinking…”
“It’s no big deal. I didn’t know you guys weren’t even that old. Guess she didn’t totally just reject anybody like I thought…”
Sanvu listened to them up ahead, and noticed Pachuku was a lot calmer. Often times he was fidgety like with his paws or overly peppy, wagging his tail whenever he was talking, but he seemed a lot calmer now, a lot more normal. Maybe working with somebody else was alleviating him?
Then they encountered an odd skewed room. It was almost diagonal in shape. In the middle were the stairs.
“There!”
Pachuku dove forward, picking up a small purple and white scarf.
“Wait!”
Everyone turned to look at Sanvu, and he shied away instinctively, not used to the attention. “Wasn’t it held by an Amnesiac? I don’t know if we can pick it up…”
“Pachuku’s badge is blinking the same as it has been on this floor. So that can’t be it…”
“Amnesiac energy affects Pokemon, not items…” Ritza clarified; her voice low in volume but enough that they picked it up. Pachuku ran right back, nothing having changed.
“Yeah, Amnesiac stuff like, hits the mind, right? So would it have to do with like… aura?” Pachuku picked up the scarf, his head tilted as he addressed the group.
“You’re close,” Roin clarified, “It affects your aura and then affects the mind. Then who knows what happens.”
“But we found it, yippee!” Ritza bobbed.
“I guess that means we’re going back now but…” Sanvu trailed off, looking at them, “I don’t know if I want to leave you be after seeing what’s happening to this place…”
“Aww, Sanvu, they’ve been exploring like us, they’ll be fine. Didra’s probably gonna be mad if we don’t finish our mission.”
“Yeah, I know that for a fact,” Roin added, Pachuku stuffing the scarf into their own bag.
“You don’t need to worry about us,” Ritza added, “We’ll make it out okay, surely whatever’s doing this to the dungeon can be resolved!”
“We’re really grateful for your help though, really!” Roin smiled warmly.
The Minders finally decided to warp themselves back after sending their goodbyes.
Upon receiving their reward and the usual praise, the duo were off to Pachuku’s secret training location to brush up on moves. On the way, though, Pachuku was noticeably more deliberate and focused than usual.
“I know for a fact the dungeon didn’t look like that,” he informed, not particularly looking at Sanvu as they walked, “I’d often go in there to find a single Amnesiac teammate before you came along… it wasn’t even that long ago that the stones retained their colours.”
“But if they’re just rocks…”
“All dungeon appearance stuff is made out of dungeon energy. Everyone knows that. So is it, like, changing? But if so, how?”
“Maybe that’s for us to investigate when we’ve got more experience?” Sanvu offered. Pachuku went silent at that.
“What I want to know is why even though an Amnesiac dropped the item, it didn’t have any of the energy in it. And why the badges were blinking,” Sanvu mused, as they trained their moves to make up for the dungeon’s general lack of resistance.
After a small session, they went back home, back to the black void of sleep, where only humming would await those who would dream tonight.
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