POKÉMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: GATES INTO SHADOW

Chapter Four: Village of Lost Souls

They go visit Carson the next day, asking him about the glowing brooch, and his glowing Defense Scarfs. Popping open a hidden drawer, Carson presents another glowing stone, identical to the one in the brooch, and explains it’s a Wishing Stone. This is what Stax’s boss has him holding on to – one of a set of seven, which when collected summon a mystical Pokémon capable of reshaping reality itself. But with just two of them, Carson can make some better Defense Scarfs – though he’d need some stronger material than just Spinarak nest-silk to imbue that energy onto, material which in Carson’s own time could be found in a village deeper into Old Oak Forest called Burnwillow.

Carson, ever paranoid, also offers to show the two around the forest a little, to see if his “proof” of something actually going on around there holds up. Turns out there’s a large swath of flattened forest, and sword-slashes sliced into the still-standing trees.

All of this is reported to the guild. There are no records of any village named Burnwillow, any village in that forest, or even any village in this entire area before Pannacotta. Proof of strange occurrences around Carson’s place is taken only semi-seriously, thanks to how frequently he’s reported them before.

Ambur and Hazy then take a job from the request board, something about a weird red dog deeper in Old Oak. What a coincidence. They return to the trail and investigate, finding it ends at a very obvious Dungeon Entrance. They jump right in.

Old Oak Forest Dungeon feels strange even compared to the usual Mystery Dungeon strangeness, with Hazy feeling even more uneasy than their normal quests. Nothing but a straight shot dirt path through oak trees, with ruined stones dotted at regular intervals, and occasional forks down identical-looking paths.

The team takes a wrong turn down the first one, finding a large clearing with a single massive oak tree at its center. They get jumped by a couple thieving Nuzleaf, with Hazy’s wrestling skills burying one hard enough to plant a tree, and Ambur’s Dark Pulse doing decently well until a bap to their snoot makes it backfire and leaves them in critical condition. Hazy scoops the Umbreon up and bolts back down the path, Flamethrowering the angry Seedot that dropped down from the trees and jumped in their way.

They take a brief rest back at the fork, with Ambur focusing on the glowing Moonlight to recuperate some strength, before making their way down the presumably correct path this time – which is also dotted with stone markers, unlike the one which led to the clearing. The next couple forks are a little easier to intuit now that they have some vague idea of what to look for, with the stones looking more and more intact and the dirt path giving way to cobblestones with large roots snaking through them.

The oak trees at the sides of the path gradually give way to some burnt willows. Hazy feels more and more unsettled by their surroundings, and starts to remember that this was the dungeon he’d been trapped in. He fishes the Cubone club out from his bag, finding that holding it helped keep him a little more calm – with his flames flickering teal at the very edges.

The red roots snaking through the cobblestone path aren’t entirely what they appear to be, with two of them crawling out of the ground and revealing flat segmented bodies, dozens of legs, and fiery eyebrows. Ambur’s entomophobia wins out and they run back up the path, with Hazy taking it as an excuse to book it too, increasingly uncomfortable being in this Dungeon. The sound of angry Nuzleaf and Seedot approaching from the other side turn them around again though, and they decide to brave the Centiskorch as Hazy remembers they can be easily distracted with food – which he of course always carries a good supply of.

Hazy’s fire turns entirely teal halfway through their walk down the path again, with the Typhlosion sounding extremely out of it and having to be reminded where they are and what they’re doing and how to deal with the Centiskorch.

They finally reach the end of the road, meeting with a pair of Larvesta-infested willow trees making an archway, with its beyond obscured behind hanging branches and leaves. Before it, a weird red dog stands guard – a strange-looking Growlithe with darker fur and curlier, eye-obscuring mane.

Ambur explains they’re there “to investigate”, and Rin, the guard Growlithe, comments that they don’t normally let Dark types enter, but since they’re with Hazy – who really isn’t supposed to be outside the village, apparently – they can pass through the arch to the next floor.

The lanterns along the path start showing a slightly purple-blue tinge as their wavering flickering flames point down the path, inviting, encouraging. The pair arrive at another security gate staffed by a Bonsly, Bow, who escorts them into the village.

It’s more of a town, actually. Maybe even a city. Bigger than Pannacotta, with a much larger market square filled with Bonsly and Seedot and Ninjask and Larvesta, and behind that a giant mansion, which they’re told to enter. Immediately beyond the doors is a large entrance hall, with an imposing mural dominating the back wall – stylised and hard to interpret but seeming to portray a red dragon fighting a winged sun. Before that mural, a throne, and on it, a Suicune, their colors muted and their wispy mane strangely red.

They introduce themself as Wisp, they welcome the Explorers to Burnwillow, and, though regarding them with some suspicion, they offer them a room in which to rest and recover. Wisp escorts the pair there, along with Bow and another pair of apparent mansion staff – a Ninjask, Benji, and a Larvesta, Hew.

The rooms are built to Hazy’s size, making Ambur feel a little tiny – but there’s a comfy bed and they could definitely use the rest. On the wall of their room is a sword, sheathed, with a ribbon hanging from the hilt. Ambur manages to eavesdrop on a conversation between Wisp and one of the others about whether or not the shambling, teal-tinged Typhlosion is Hazy, and how they’re going to deal with “the Dark type.”

Their rest is interrupted early the next morning by everything being on fire. Hazy is back to his usual colors and disposition, and is now gnawing angrily on the Cubone club as it sparks teal and shakes. The sword on the wall starts rattling as Hazy has a semi-inaudible conversation with the ghost in the bone who, as it turns out, has been their unofficial third Team member for a while now. Ambur tells Hazy to calm down a little, wanting to stay in their hosts’ good graces, given their demonstrable bias against Dark types.

Wisp unlocks the door, alerted by the Honedge’s rattling, and they have a conversation with Hazy, who is very upset about being in this village, upset with Ambur for leading him there and upset with the bone-ghost for preventing him from having a say in the matter – but most of all upset with Wisp for insisting they stay. The Suicune explains no one’s left the village for hundreds of years – which is demonstrably false, since Hazy and Carson both used to live here and both got out just a few years ago. Wisp clarifies that they have had a little run-in with a Star League Knight, but aside from that…

Hazy shoves his way out anyway, with Ambur quickly following along, a little disappointed after having had to negotiate their stay there all by themself thanks to Hazy’s possession. Benji and Hew tail them, though, insisting that the Explorers show them to the exit. As if there’s anything difficult about that.

The town looks different than the night before, with stalls in the Market Square seeming to repeat, and all the Pokémon milling about look like they’re on autopilot, none of them actually coming or going or making any purchases. It all looks a lot more generated, more illusory, like the town itself is part of the Mystery Dungeon’s attempts at creating locations. Ambur asks about the silk for Carson’s upgraded scarfs, with the namedrop eliciting the briefest reaction from Hew, but gets told that maybe if they show them the exit they’ll get some silk.

A short while after passing Rin’s guard gate again, the path just ends, in a dead-end of trees and the black void between them. Ambur knows that the Dungeon must have reshaped itself while they slept, but it can’t have changed so much that the singular path they followed inside would just entirely disappear. They step forward into the shade that consumes all light, ignoring the concerned cries of their villager escorts, and the strange wave of dizziness that hits them, and stumble out back onto the path, back at the Centiskorch. They call out to Hazy and help guide him through the void, with the bugs following close by him, and skirt around the “roots” back along the path to one of the forks in the road.

It’s not a fork any more, but a hairpin turn, the path from the village turning sharply into the path to the large oak tree and the Nuzleaf hive. Ambur decides to brave the void again, but the dizziness hits them much worse this time, and they turn back to confront the two bugs.

Benji seems to be the one more in charge, and definitely the more visually threatening of the pair, so Ambur hits them with a Warp Orb and starts interrogating Hew about the silk instead. Turns out there is no silk! Willow makes it. Willow is the winged sun in the mural. Willow left through “the other exit” a thousand years ago.

So the tiny bug has nothing to bargain with. So they should probably leave.

Ambur turns around again, but the dizziness hits them even before they step into the void, and this time they recognize it as Confuse Ray, scarfing down a Persim Berry to stave it off. A voice in Hazy’s head, a voice that Hazy can clearly tell is not of his own mind, manages to communicate that “it’s the bug,” and Hazy immediately elbow drops the Larvesta – and falls right through, the bug flickering like a flame. The illusion drops, with a tiny candle standing where the bug had been, the flame on its head waving just like the lanterns that seemed to beckon them toward the village.

Hazy and Ambur hit it with a Ghost-Dark combo and knock it out instantly, making the path reappear. It was all a ghostly illusion. They book it down the now entirely visible path, just in time for some other strange ghostly presence to fling a boulder at them right as they pass the threshold back out into the normal forest.

They’ve only been gone for a few real-world hours by the time they meet back with Carson, who is intensely spooked as the Explorers describe what they found, and explains that they awoke an ancient evil, the red dragon Ormendahl. Okay. He’s pretty confused at the mention of Wisp, though. Wisp was gone, long before even Willow disappeared.

He does want to move his wagon away from the forest, though, which is completely understandable since they did actually make some of the Dungeon dwellers a little bit mad. Hazy helps drag it into town, in a little nook between the bridge across the river and the plateau where the Guild Tower stands. He comes with them as they report to Meringue – again, waking them up in the middle of the night.

Their report doesn’t impress the Whimsicott much, not quite feeling worth waking them up for, though the revelation that Hazy was in Old Oak Dungeon is a bit of a surprise, considering Cinnamin didn’t find him or Carson anywhere near there. Clearly they need to have a talk. One other thing does pique Carson’s interest though, now that the Explorers are giving extra details – Wisp isn’t a Suicune. They’re a weird little dog, smaller than Ambur, reddish-white and fluffy like a cloud. Just another illusion to add to the pile, then.

After the long struggle through Old Oak, Ambur and Hazy decide to take the day off, committed to completely ignoring any job request even if it falls directly in their lap. They're going to the hot spring to relax, after grabbing some nice lunch from Lavender's Cafe. The Black Forest is respectably quiet and calm, a stark contrast to their last time heading for the hot springs, that first mission of theirs together, getting scooped up into a Mystery Dungeon.

The Cubone club, previously stowed away in Hazy's bag, splashes into the spring while the pair aren't looking. It's been doing that a fair bit, moving when unseen. It's a little unsettling. Ambur and Hazy decide to have a conversation with the spirit inhabiting it – with Ambur learning that exorcisms like this were Hazy's old job, before the thousand year Dungeon stay. He would either help the spirit move on, or, failing that… eat it.

Ambur tries picking it up to "talk" directly, but their Dark typing makes the spirit retreat deeper inside, so they're forced to just ask it general questions and try to glean answers from the vibes the bone gives off. Hazy is a lot better at reading those vibes, of course, so Ambur ends up just listening in through his translation.

The Cubone hasn't been dead that long – probably only a few months. The giant bug in the forest got them, the oversized Ariados lurking in that nest. They had a partner there with them – like, a Team partner?

Wanting to know the spirit's name, Ambur draws up a makeshift Ouija board in the dirt – the real thing was outlawed decades ago, thanks to its tendency to really bother Ghost types, with the only ones available now being nonfunctional toy replicas. So Hazy gives them some tips on making sure this one will work, despite being a little bothered by the idea. With the big Typhlosion holding the bone like a dowsing rod over the grid of letters, its vague and unsure movements spell out… “ERIC.”

Bit of a strange name for a ghost, though Ambur isn't really sure what they were expecting – and Hazy hurriedly scuffs out the letters before they can attract the attention of all those Ghost types they pissed off in Old Oak, a thing that can happen apparently. Ambur decides they should borrow some books about spirits from the library tomorrow, since they seem to be dealing with those a lot lately.

A subtle splash in the water at the top tier of the hot spring draws Ambur's attention, and Hazy spots a subtle spiral mark at the floor of the pool when they go to investigate. Despite gnawing curiosity, they both mutually decide to stick to their plan of ignoring everything for the sake of relaxation, hopping back in the water and talking about whatever – with Ambur particularly interested in learning about Hazy's time, now that they'd seen a glimpse of it in Old Oak.

It's pretty dark out by the time they head back towards Pannacotta, and Ambur overhears a conversation between innkeeper Strawberry and the strange shadow in the river under the inn. Something about some situation that needs to be resolved by their guest, a situation that their guest is nowhere near recovered enough for, a situation involving the thing in the forest that the shadow had tried to fight before, that the guest and his partner had tried to fight before, that both times went very badly. Ambur remarks, a little too loud, that if the job needs to get done that badly they should put it up on the Guild's Job Board.

The shadow overhears, and turns to stare at the space Ambur stood a second ago with eyes emanating a red glare, then disappears into the river, with Hazy feeling the subtle tingle of something entering a Dungeon.

The team slowly gets to putting pieces together – the strange shadow, and the guest and his partner, both fought the thing in the forest, and it went badly. The Shadow Lugia? The Charmeleon, and his partner Turmeric? The giant Ariados? The… the bone. TurmERIC.

They head for the Guild Tower, with Ambur wanting to report the Dungeon entrance residue they'd found at the hot spring – but Hazy spills everything they learned about the ghost bone and the guest's partner and the giant spider and the shadow in the river in one breathless ramble directly into the Whimsicot's face, once again ruining their night. They say that's a lot to deal with, in the most polite tone they can manage, and make vague platitudes about writing a letter to the other guilds – then tell our Team to go home. So they do.