POKÉMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: GATES INTO SHADOW

Chapter Two: The Lost Shipment

Ambur’s letter to their Mystery Dungeon research friends gets a response, claiming that the Umbreon’s book spawned from a Dungeon, and is currently in the possession of an organization known as the Star League, who are using its knowledge for… experiments.

While buying supplies the next day, Mike and Ike inform the Team of their troubles with a missing shipment, having disappeared somewhere in the plains past the Black Forest. Using a Mystery Dungeon as a shortcut, they reach the plains, joined by Cinnamin and Rigatoni in their quest.

Trails of spirals mark the ground, the residual pattern of a collapsed Dungeon entrance, with the line spanning from the centerpoint between two known, established Dungeon entrances, to some unknown point far in the distance. Somewhere along this trail remains a single stable entrance, and our two Teams dive right in.

The grassy Dungeon’s first floor is pretty uneventful, but on their way to the second floor Ambur and Hazy end up in some strange sub-floor containing an oddly modern-looking convenience store. Inside they find most of the missing shipment (a ton of lemons) and a Porygon-Z behind the Rotom-Cash-Register, calling themself Stax and claiming to know Hazy and his old partner Carson – and claiming that he owes the Porygon-Z’s boss some money. Hazy decides to pay back some of this apparent debt by buying a crate of the stolen lemons.

They manage to leave the sub-floor and meet with Cinnamin and Rigatoni again, reaching the second floor and finding a diagonal path cutting clean through the Dungeon’s grassy walls. Examining it, they find two Pokémon engaged in a swordfight – a Sirfetch’d, and a mysterious armored opponent wielding a burning blade.

After a brief scuffle, the situation is de-escalated, with the armored Pokémon revealing himself to be Syr Rigel, a Clefairy of the Star League. He’s taking a direct route through the dungeon, cutting through this Sirfetch’d’s house, towards a point in the dungeon where space is more “solid”, where multiple Dungeon-space nodes and ley lines overlap. Accompanied by Hazy, Ambur negotiates their cartography skills to assist Rigel in taking the quickest path there that doesn’t require destruction of property, finding a clearing in the grass where the Clefairy’s sword – a gleaming, impossibly perfect blade labeled RKS-02 – begins to glow. Urged to leave, Ambur and Hazy begin to head back to meet with the rest of the group, but double back just in time to watch a light-pillar Dungeon entrance punch its way through this plane, leaving a familiar spiral-mark on the ground in its wake.

Meanwhile, Cinnamin and Rigatoni assist the Sirfetch’d in finding the two missing Mudbray. The party of six leaves the Dungeon, taking the same Black Forest dungeon as a shortcut back home, meeting that same damn Breloom again and casually beating his ass. Following this very long adventure, Ambur writes out a letter to the Star League, asking for a copy of the mysterious Umbreon’s Book, then finally gets some sleep.

The next day is somewhat uneventful. Ambur and Hazy return the single crate of lemons they had managed to retrieve to Mike and Ike, and ask them about Stax, with only confused shrugs in response; They report the mysterious Star League Clefairy to the town’s Guild, with Meringue promising to bring it to the attention of the Regional Guild; They go visit Carson to ask about Stax and get told they’re holding onto something for Stax’s boss, with no further elaboration; And finally they spend the rest of the day at Lavender and Violet’s Café, still recovering from the previous day’s lengthy rescue mission.