POKÉMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: GATES INTO SHADOW

Chapter Ten: Spirits of Things Lost
raw campaign notes edition

ambur lays on astra's back as they walk. they run into a lotad in the road who expresses concern about them being out alone wandering the path through the plains late at night. his name is tortilla. with just a little hestiation they follow him to his place of rest, the remnants of a basement to a house that no longer exists. he asks for ten coins a head, and despite the hefty charge for just a few hours' stay, they all pay up, dropping the gold in the lotad's rain dish. out here in the middle of nowhere you kinda have to charge a little more.

they leave in the middle of the night with the lotad missing. wisp, still awake and having kept watch the whole time, says he didn't do anything, just wander around a little. they shrug it off and leave, continuing down the path to mallow.

they run into the furret and nidoran again, this time harrassing and attempting to rob a familiar bellsprout, one that had been very mean to the café ghosts and had left town pretty soon after. the team just decide to not intervene until the nido mentions their boss, and after some intimidation from dhari he coughs up the name tortilla. the lotad's a mob boss. they tell the pair to fuck off cause their boss already got paid today, and hazy hands the furret his huge bag of granola. they also offer to accompany the bellsprout to mallow town as long as he keeps quiet, but he just has to run his mouth about untrustworhty dark types, so they leave him in the dirt.

mallow town is smaller than pannacotta, only four main buildings and a few scattered houses, around a crossroad connecting pannacotta, nori, vanilla and lone lodge. they check in at the inn staffed by a wooper, securing a room for two days and some breakfast, with astra asking if they serve torchic nuggets before realising that fresh baked bread and jam made with real fruits is way better.

they check out the kecleon shop, run by a black and white pair called licorice and mint. pokémon are allowed to share names i guess sure. ambur buys a blow dart gun and a couple darts and grabs all of hazy's seeds. a bellsprout checks in at the inn while they're shopping.

curious to see if they have a map of local dungeon shortcuts, ambur heads into the town hall, finding a victreebel behind the desk talking with a goomy called jujube, who runs a local guide business that's been disrupted by a lot of unstable dungeons popping up lately. ambur offers team midnight crew's services to help some of jujube's customers across the marsh, as well as delivering a letter to the goomy's brother in nori, in exchange for payment, and he accepts. they'll meet back here tomorrow.

they head to the inn for the day.

after a quick breakfast, the midnight crew meet up with jujube and his clients, a pair of blitzle named salt and pepper. the gang jokes about potential kecleon shop names like ketchup & mustard and pb & jay as they head out of town in the opposite direction they need to be travelling in, because the closest entrance to cola marsh dungeon is actually to the south.

they hop into the dungeon. it's muddy and wet and foggy and horrible. ambur gets to mapping their way through, though most of the forks in the road are technical dead ends -- the water's too deep to go any further down them. they have to cross some slightly deep muddy sludge occasionally too, with ambur hopping up on astra's back the first time.

the second time though, they spot some black fins poking out of the water, and after multiple failed attempts at amicable communication, they decide to just head forward, not wanting to start a fight themselves. the marshtomp certainly do want to start a fight though, the three of them making a muddy wave that leaves ambur drowning for most of the fight until wisp rescues them. hazy cuts through the wave with his sword though, then stabs one of the marshtomp, grabs it by the jaw, and slams it against another marshtomp, while the third gets plucked out of the water by astra's gravity control, twinbeamed at point blank range, then thrown back into the water just a few feet away. they wisely decide to retreat after that, and the gang crosses over to the other side, with ambur and astra both using up their healing moves to recover from almost drowning.

the path forward continues in a mostly straightforward way with lots of split paths leading to deepwater dead ends -- until one of those dead ends actually has a boardwalk bridge crossing it, fractally replicating boards and posts a little scattershot but still clearly a solid enough path. after checking in with salt and pepper that the carts can go over that bridge just fine, they decide to go ahead and take the path, finding it branches out a little more than the muddy swamp floor path did, with one such fork in the road leading directly into the misty walls of the dungeon. astra spots lights beyond the semitranslucent wall, so the gang pushes forward into the fog.

the lights are a building, single-storey, with an orchard directly behind -- surrounded by a fence lined with ghost-warding talismans. a sign outside written in standard footprint runes identifies it as the "tea time inn". the party does need a rest so they head inside, ambur leading the way. it's staffed by a vileplume, a roserade, and three gloom. due to hazy and astra's size the main party is gonna have to rest in the front hall, but salt & pepper can have a room for themselves. astra asks about torchic nuggets and ambur very quickly corrects and asks about the orchard, wondering if they offer fresh fruit and jams and fritters. they do! it's a really nice feast for the whole party -- except hazy who prefers veggies, munching on a raw onion from his bag.

one of the inn staff remarks on the blitzles' carts outside, and when asked if they've seen any of the previous couriers who've come through here, they answer affirmatively and say they offered some of their cargo as payment. ambur finds that kinda suspicious so asks wisp if she'll keep watch on the carts -- her just not ever needing to sleep being a very convenient excuse for her staying awake to do that.

she is already asleep though. in fact so is astra, neck like a felled tree in the middle of the hall. salt & pepper already went to their rooms after eating just a little -- and hazy didn't eat any of the fruit. ambur dozes off while the vileplume questions hazy on why he didn't eat any of their offerings, and their insistence that he try at least one fritter makes him extremely suspicious -- so he pulls out a heal orb and flashes it at the party, lifting the sleep status the food had inflicted. drugged food, a common bandit trick.

after a brief moment of panic the vileplume flees and ambur and astra chase after it, with hazy going to find salt & pepper in their room and wisp staying to watch the carts. the blitzle are also awake again thanks to the heal orb considering them part of the party, so hazy helps guide them out to wisp, then runs back in saying he'll burn the inn down. barely a second later the entire side of the building explodes.

simultaneously, ambur and astra arrive at the back room of the inn, full of stolen supplies from robbed couriers and housing all five of the inn staff. ambur immediately throw a blinker seed, hitting the roserade square in the face and blinding most of the gloom, who in their panic flood the room with sleep powder. astra's out cold again, but ambur holds out and attempts to interrogate them as to where the previous couriers are, and on receiving no answer, throws a blast seed at the vileplume.

turns out pollen is incredbily flammable. the room lights up, and a second later half the wall is missing, and most of the ghost-warding talismans along with it. hazy arrives and notices astra knocked out, ambur crumpled in a heap, and the grass types attempting to limp away. hazy looms over one of them and questions where the couriers are, with the gloom desperately explaining that they had to keep the ghosts in the orchard happy in exchange for all that delicious fruit.

the orchard is full of trevenant. they've been feeding pokémon to the trees. hazy enraged kicks the roserade into the orchard, then flames on and sprints in to try and find any survivors to rescue. ambur meanwhile feeds astra a revival herb, who upon hearing about the situation switches out for dhari and sprints in after hazy. ambur scarfs down a couple oran berries and follows them.

with all the sealing talismans broken, the trevenant are starting to escape -- save for one who stays in place, surrounded by recently disturbed dirt. hazy and ambur and dhari hit it with three simultaneous attacks, then as dhari lifts it using psychic ambur digs at the dirt underneath, finding an emolga and two bidoof. hazy begins eating the trevenant's ghostly essence while dhari psychically squeezes it, making its roots squirm and desperately wrap around both the bidoof's throats. ambur Bites at one root managing to free one bidoof but the other is lifting too high for them to reach, and as the trevenants' ghost drains the wood is solidifying, choking the bidoof tighter. ambur asks hazy to stop and hazy lets go, while dhari switches his psychic focus to the bidoof, managing to pop him out like a cork, then holding him while sprinting to the courier carts like a footballer.

that does mean he let go of the tree though, letting it fall on top of ambur while they're trying to drag the bidoof and emolga out from the crater the roots left. hazy, landing, manages to brace the tree on his shoulders long enough that ambur can drag the two unconscious pokémon out, before dropping it back down and finishing his ghostly meal. they carry the pokémon back to the rest of the party, dump them in the carts, then tell salt & pepper to fucking book it -- the trees are out and this dungeon is gonna get a lot less friendly.

having gotten absolutely zero rest but needing to keep moving to avoid the trees, ambur suggests that the party take shifts hauling the carts -- salt volunteers to keep going while pepper rests, and hazy drags the other cart along as ambur climbs in and dozes off.

after a few hours of wandering, hazy feels a dungeon gateway somewhere nearby, while astra gets a ping on his phone. it's a text, illegibly garbled and glitchy, random ascii characters with random diacritics. the phone also picks up two wi-fi signals -- one incredibly strong, its name consisting of the same garbled text, and another weak signal labeled with a string of alchemical and astrological symbols.

heading further, they find the gateway -- a hole in a hollowed-out tree trunk, flickering like a cracked screen. they wake ambur up and ambur suggests astra stick his head in like a periscope, but the portal tries pulling him all the way in until hazy drags his ass back out. torn between their job protecting the couriers and their curiosity as a mystery dungeon researcher, ambur dives through, telling the rest of the party that they'll send a note back if it's safe. hazy pulls out an hourglass, saying they'll come in after ambur if they don't hear anything by the time the sand runs out.

ambur ends up in the clouds, a second sun burning in the sky, with footsteps in the distance -- and a skeletal kabutops occasionally flashing into view in the corner of their eye. they try tracking the footsteps, but stop when they notice wisp and astra following them through the portal, unable to wait even five minutes. ambur tells them to wait by the portal, and astra listens, but wisp disguises herself even smaller and sneaks behind the umbreon.

ambur tracks down the footsteps, finding a charmander and bulbasaur, decked out in rescue team equipment. or is it a squirtle and cubone? pikachu and eevee? it changes every time ambur blinks. they ask what's going on, and the rescue team tells them to get out dummy, the end of the world is coming. ambur remembers the story of the young rescue team, their ascent up the heavens, their quest to convince the great sky dragon to halt a meteor.

they turn to run back, noticing the jumpluff sneaking behind them and instinctively bapping it with their tail -- it immediately poofs back into wisp's undisguised zoroark form, they tell her to fucking run. the flame scale ambur got from lady burnwillow feels hot in their bag as they hear a roar from high above. running back to the portal, ambur yells at astra to jump through, then stops and waits by it for wisp, who is lagging behind. a beam fires from the top of sky tower and hits the second sun as ambur pulls out the flame scale and examines it, feeling protected from the wave of heat. wisp trips a distance away from the portal, and ambur goes to help her out, her shifting to a vulpix to become easier to carry.

they sprint to the portal, but it flickers closed as they try to jump through. they see the skeletal kabutops again.

hazy watches astra come barrelling back through the portal before it flickers closed. then a skeletal ghost appears above the log, and ambur and wisp come tumbling out of the darkness, fur singed but otherwise looking fine.

they continue looking for the dungeon's actual exit while ambur recounts the story, and speculates that they ended up in the story, rather than anywhere "real", since small details like the species of the two heroes kept changing. astra checks his phone and the glitchy wi-fi signal is gone, but the other weak signal remains.

astra uses his future tech support know-how to poke around the second weak wi-fi signal, finding it belongs to the star league. a lot of files are encrypted to a degree that you'd have to have physical access to the star league internal system to unlock, but some have only weak security measures, if at all. mostly it's internal communications about resource requests, shipments of glass, copper, aluminum, all very pure and refined, orbs and other dungeon supplies, complaints about reliance on nori's industry, etc -- but some have more juicy info, like discussions of the RKS system discs and their connection to leylines allowing for miniaturisation of entercard tech and of requirements for vacuum-tight parts and of a "ghost incident" that they learned a lot from (oops). eventually astra loses connection, not due to a security lockout but just due to losing wi-fi signal.

he relays this info to ambur and they start discussing it very loudly and very openly in front of their clients, who very reasonably get a little weird about it and ask how and why we are discussing confidential star league info -- especially considering their shipment is to nori, the town the star league does most of its industry in. ambur slightly threatens to leave them in the dungeon, which freaks them out more while hazy explains that the star league have kinda been dicks to us in the past. that only worries the zebstrika a little more, the star league are good guys why would they be mean to you? ambur, still frazzled from witnessing the collapse of sky tower and the end of the world, presents the not at all helpful hypothetical of "we are dangerous criminals but we are still helping you get to where you need to be so who gives a shit now shut up and let me figure out where we are"

ambur stares at the very unhelpful map for a few moments, then stares directly up into the sky with wide manic eyes and suddenly sees everything, they see the leylines intersect and cross they see the flow of the soul of the world pulsing and thrumming and they burst into a full speed sprint diving around corners and barrelling down hallways and crashing directly through the dungeon's exit gateway. the rest of the party manages to follow their tracks and leaves the dungeon to find them sitting in the middle of the path staring up at the sky, and when asked what's going on they start rambling about leylines and worldsouls and it's all coming down it's all collapsing somewhere everywhere at any second millions of worlds are dying and billions are being created anew and-- astra shoves them into one of the carts and tells them to rest. ambur refuses, scribbling rambling nonsense notes that they absolutely will not be able to understand tomorrow morning.

the party rests up, with ambur's sleep and wake delayed by a couple hours thanks to their manic note-taking. wisp asks astra if he can see the city, the old fort as she remembers it, but all astra can see is the smoke of industry. eventually they get close enough to see the city walls -- nori is a modern town built on top of an old fortification, ruins of old walls among current style houses. the industrial sector is to the north, on the far side of the city. stationed at every entrance into nori are golurk guards bearing the star league's insignia -- with two more guarding the entrance to nori's local guildhall.

they accompany the zebras to just outside the guildhall, receiving payment and letting them cart their shipment off to the metal guild, while astra and hazy carry the bidoof and emolga into the rescue guild. ambur rings the bell at the front but a mudkip and torchic team say there's no one running the desk, then go to call a medic seeing the still KOd pokémon. they tell team midnight crew they should go to mustard at the fishing guild for their reward money -- the bidoof went missing a while ago while egg the emolga was escorting them. nori guild is massively understaffed, with only three "teams", counting egg as his own solo team. the star knights help out with some jobs here and there too but they're terrible at rescue work. they used to have a lot more teams but they got lost in unstable dungeons and went missing. they go get astra his own gold team badge since midnight crew is adopting him as part of the team, plus one spare extra badge in case wisp wants to formally join. they discuss how pannacotta's doing, explaining they found chipotle but he's not gonna come back to nori for a while, he's still resting up and recovering. team hot cross buns is not here either, they went off to dragonsgrave to deal with the shadow pokémon and never returned.

they notice wisp is gone but carry on to the fishing guild anyway, explaining to mustard the bibarel that the bidoof are safe and getting medical care at the guildhall. he gives them money and some smoked fish. they meet wisp again outside who says she's been looking around to see if any landmarks she remembers from the old fort are still here. they see a couple star knights escorting some kind of white puffball pokémon into the guildhall.

they stop by the kecleon shop (bon & bonne's) and grab a couple supplies. wisp is sure they're being watched. astra checks his phone and sees that being in the dungeon charged his battery a little bit. of course it did that's star league tech.

they walk to the library, noticing there's a star knight stationed outside the guildhall now in addition to the pair of golurk. it's syr rigel. at the library they meet gumdrop the goodra, presenting her with the letters from licorice and jujube, and with the umbreon diary. she says she'll do her best but it'll take a week, and in exchange they have to make a delivery back to jujube. while at the library, astra researches ghosts (some cool info on trevenant, spiritomb, and a weird ghost dragon that's the namesake for dragonsgrave), hazy demonstrates his knowledge of unown script (gumdrop will have to hire him for some translation work at some point), and ambur looks into whether there's any more mystery dungeon info here (nothing that they haven't already read). they also research the star league's history some more, finding some really fancily printed books with fine paper pages and crisp printed letters, and some very clear non-illustrated images. star league has modern type printers and photography. most that they glean is polaris is still alive. an older style and probably less propagandistic book says the star league used to basically just be moonstone town's local guild, but they expanded out across the entire continent and split off into the r&d side (star labs) and the militaristic side (star knights)