POKÉMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: GATES INTO SHADOW

Chapter Three: King of the Pirates

The Guild’s job board reports a massive amount of stolen equipment from the farms north of Pannacotta, and Ambur and Hazy are on the case. A new Dungeon has opened in Shallot’s cornfield, with footprints leading from it to the nearby barn. Diving into the new corn maze Dungeon, Hazy tries eating the corn while Ambur scouts around. To the west lies a large fractal barn copying the one outside the Dungeon, to the north a small lake with some unidentified large object nearby, to the south and east near-infinite cornfield.

They decide to investigate the barn structure, encountering some Pumpkaboo that hypnotize themselves with Ambur’s Synchronize and a Diglett that backs down thanks to Hazy’s sheer size. Inside the barn is the same Gligar the group met back in Streusel Hills, stealing food from the pirates who have taken residence in the barn. They investigate one of the crates, Hazy using the Cubone club to crack it open – his fire briefly flaring teal in the process. The crate is full of Seedot. The team puts the lid back on the crate and pretends they didn’t see anything.

The Gligar makes off with a couple bags of assorted Seeds, while Hazy loads up a wheelbarrow with as much of the stolen farming equipment as possible. Hearing the pirates approach, Hazy uses their one remaining Escape Orb to get the Team and the equipment out safely. Shallot takes claim to everything he can recognise as his, while the rest gets carted off to the Guild for the farmers to claim at their own discretion.

Ambur is forced out of bed at 9AM the next day to help Hazy help the farmers build a shed over the Dungeon entrance in Shallot’s field. They’re very not happy about it, but do their best to help supervise. The farmers pay them in food for their efforts.

Ambur checks in at the Guild after hours, sans Hazy, asking about the Cubone club and its apparent “possession” of Hazy. Meringue doesn’t know anything. The strange shadow under the Inn that they first noticed on their way back from rescuing the Mudbray is still there, and Strawberry, the Lurantis that helps run the Inn, is acting a little suspicious around it. They can’t do much about that though, and decide to spend the rest of their night reading the rest of the books they checked out from the library.

On their usual routine the next day, they return the books and prepare to check out some more, and find a large amount of books missing. Licorice, the Wurmple librarian, reports a whole list of books on construction, smithing, and Mystery Dungeons, which Ambur dutifully delivers to the guild.

Meanwhile, Hazy vibes around town, feeling some vague Dungeon Entrance somewhere nearby, either long-closed or potentially yet-to-open, somewhere near Cinnamin’s place, and stumbles on a Charmeleon, knocked-out and sporting a Silver Rank Team Badge. He carries them to the Inn, and alerts Meringue. Nothing much can be done besides let them rest and recover with the help of innkeepers Strawberry and Honeydew.

Ambur is again woken up early the next morning by a pair of very strange Pokémon, a Cinderace and a Lopunny who keep posing dramatically. They don’t recognise the strangers, so they just shut the door in their faces. Ambur doesn’t realize their mistake until they talk to Meringue a couple hours later, who explains that they were Baklava and Eclair of Adventure Team Hot Cross Buns, the town’s oldest registered Team.

They meet the Buns at the Café, where they’ve been bothering Hazy since Ambur brushed them off. They reintroduce themselves and explain that they’re here to help the newer Team with the farmers’ pirate problem. They all head north again, to that by now very familiar cornfield, meeting Cinnamin and Rigatoni standing guard outside the shed before they head inside.

The four of them again head towards the barn, falling into the same Diglett hole as last time – and this time not getting out without a fight. Hazy grabs the Diglett out of the ground and home-runs him away using the Cubone club, while Ambur and the bunnies fight off a trio of Excadrill.

The barn is empty by the time they reach it, the pirates having relocated, and our Team Tag Team passes through the other side without incident. They decide to head towards the lake and the strange large object beside it, and as they approach they realize it’s an airship, battle-damaged from an apparent encounter with the Shadow Lugia. They take the long way round to approach from its shadow, giving them more time to prepare.

The pirates are a bunch of Totodile and Croconaw. Baklava gets their attention and starts kicking, Hazy hits two of them with a Warp Orb to Orre or whatever, and Eclair engages Mega Lopunny mode and starts up a combo attack with Ambur’s Dark Pulse. After a short scuffle, the pirates begin to retreat following a brass honk signal from the ship itself.

Trying to gain some kind of extra advantage, Ambur sneaks onto the ship, manipulating their bioluminescence to try and gain a bonus to their stealth. They can’t really do much until the others join them on board though, with Hazy equipping the Cubone club and flaring up teal again, and Team Hot Cross Buns kicking ass after Ambur brightens their glow as a flashbang distraction.

Things start to go a little sideways though, as the pirate’s Captain, a Feraligatr, dives off the ship and into the lake below, a brooch on his hat glowing pink as he grows to massive size – Dynamax! – while Hazy, possibly possessed by the Cubone club, engages Operation Hindenburg and blasts a pillar of fire directly upward at the airship’s balloon.

Eclair throws Baklava throws Ambur at the Captain’s head, but they miss and Ambur has to climb the colossus while the others try to keep him too occupied to shake off the small nuisance. Hazy, seemingly in some kind of berserker rage, throws the club at the Captain, while Baklava tanks a kick from the giant Feraligatr which slams her hard into the side of the ship and knocks her out instantly. Ambur throws their bag down to the bunnies to let Eclair use a Reviver Seed on her partner, then reaches the hat and grabs the brooch, tearing it from the fabric and instantly disengaging the Feraligatr’s Dynamax.

The depowered Captain runs away like a coward while the two Teams tie up the rest of his crew, hopping back onto the boat to loot as much as they can before it burns to the ground – with Hazy, now back to his senses and his usual colors, hitting the deck with more fire to speed up the job. Among the various supplies and copious bottles of booze, they find a map of some more northerly area dotted with various markings, and a couple of strange cards teeming with Mystery Dungeon energy: one black with a Silver Wing, the other with a red and gold swirl. Prisoners and loot in tow, the gang heads out of the Dungeon.

With Rigatoni standing guard at the shed in case any remaining pirates pop through, Cinnamin accompanies the two teams back to town. Ambur notices the Defense Scarf they got from Carson is glowing pink, apparently resonating with the also glowing Dynamax Brooch they grabbed off the Captain’s hat. They resolve to go ask Carson about it tomorrow, though, since first they need to deal with their prisoners.

Team Hot Cross Buns immediately head to the inn, while Ambur, Hazy, and Cinnamin negotiate with Meringue over either finding somewhere to hold them until they can be carted off to an actual jail, or finding somewhere to dispose of the bodies. Strawberry arrives from the Inn to help figure out a solution, and Ambur and Hazy slip off to grab something to eat.

Heading into the Inn from the upper-floor entrance on the Guild Tower’s plateau, they pass by the room where the Charmeleon Hazy found is being held. A slightly singed Honeydew explains his situation – he’s very tenacious and very restless, determined to leave and investigate his missing partner, “Turmeric”. He still needs plenty more bedrest though. Hazy offers a roll of Herb to help them both calm down. Honeydew accepts.

They grab some soup and sandwiches at the Inn’s cafe, seeing Team Hot Cross Buns regaling various townsfolk with a highly dramatized and exaggerated account of their last adventure, conveniently leaving out any of the parts where they messed up, and completely disregarding the once-Reviver Seed now-Plain Seed Ambur places on their table. Their grandstanding definitely has a fantastic energy to it, and Ambur and Hazy agree that they should figure out a Team Name sometime too. After a night out of rest and recuperation, everyone heads home. Ambur sleeps peacefully.