POKÉMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: GATES INTO SHADOW

Chapter Thirteen: [untitled]
raw campaign notes edition

ambur wakes up around noon, hazy having moved them into one of the wagons for a more comfy sleep. they're curled up around a shinx plush. unsure who it belongs to, they leave it in the wagon, then hop down to talk to ollie and fennel, the only two pokémon currently awake.

with help from fennel's vine whip, they get a good look out at the surrounding area, sketching out a rough map of where they might be. it's a beach alright, and the mountains are still far to their north, so they're at least not all the way across sashimi bay. they'll need more info to pinpoint an actual location though.

they wait for everyone to wake up, then try to take a quick headcount -- specifically looking for ciabatta, the only one of nori's missing pokémon still unaccounted for. they ask if anyone's seen her. hazy very awkwardly points out the wagon they woke up in, full of various artefacts. ambur realises who the shinx plushie belongs to.

they sit on the beach for a while, holding the shinx.

after a little while, they hop up on hazy's shoulders and lay out a plan to the convoy. without much of an idea of where exactly they are, they're just going to travel northward along the coast until they come across any other pokémon. before that, everyone can take their time getting all the food and rest that they need.

ambur also explains that they... lost a few people in the dungeon's exit, and that everyone can search the wagon full of various artefacts and take with them anything that they feel any kind of sentimental attachment to.

ramune takes ciabatta's coin, ollie takes ace's scarf, sugar takes cream's bell, pinot takes coffee's postcard, james takes cress's statue. ambur takes jolt's plushie and curaçao's scarf, hazy takes the twins' daggers and jetmir's shield.

the dragon starts to wake up as everyone's having lunch. hazy offers him a couple veggies. he's still groggy from the few days he's spent in a sleep seed induced drug haze. at the very least he doesn't seem to be immediately hostile.

they start moving, at a pretty slow pace. after a few hours of travel, the stretch of beach they're on begins curving back around to the south -- and across the expanse of water is the shimmering edge of another beach. ambur sketches out more of their map, and starts to realise exactly where they are.

they're on an island. a tiny, uninhabited island, a couple miles off the coast of the nori peninsula.

okay we have four wagons, a bunch of rope, roughly six pounds of wax, and several trees from which to harvest sap. let's waterproof these wagons and sail across. easy!

there's a storm rolling in though. it'll be here in a few hours. we'll work with the time we have, and once the storm hits we'll tip the wagons over and take shelter.

while everyone works, hazy (having already done his job of helping harvest sap) sits down to talk with the dragon. his name is strix. he's twix & drix's dad, and jetmir's mate. the last thing he remembers is the star league's metal monster killing her.

hazy shows him the daggers, explaining what happened to twix and drix. strix says they were probably itemized. itemizer orbs are very illegal.

hazy also attempts to talk with the luxray that's still tagging along with the convoy. it's mute, and doesn't seem to acknowledge anything he asks.

after a few hours of work, all four wagons are all fixed up. just in time for the storm to hit.

with sam the spinarak's help weaving up tarps to cover the sideways wagons, they all hunker down and wait out the storm. pinot's various supplies keep rolling out of the bag, and with every instance he demands sam web them back up. all the dungeonborn pokémon are very spooked by this bad weather, none of them having experienced anything like this before. the luxray seems unbothered though.

after a few hours with absolutely no sleep, the storm clears up. the tide's started rolling in too, the sand damp and clingy, crusting everyone's fur and scales and scutes with salt. with more of sam's spidersilk, they tie the four wagons together in two pairs, and link ramune and bob up to pull them across.

the journey takes roughly three hours, and nobody takes it particularly well, most of the dungeon dwellers winding up seasick. hazy spots something in the water when they're about halfway across, ten silver fins poking out past the shimmering surface, with the shadow of a large body looming below. it's that lugia again. it's still stalking us.

landing at the opposite shore, back on nori peninsula proper, they drag the wagons up onto the beach. the saltwater did quite a number on those wheels, the wood waterlogged and slightly warped. hazy gently cooks them to dry them out quickly, just enough to get them rolling again.

it's still a good 20 miles to nori, there's no way they're making it home in just a day. they head a few miles inland just to get away from the beach and any risk of another rainstorm, then set up camp for a much better rest. hazy cooks up some veggies with a heavy sea salt seasoning.

resuming the journey after a few hours, hazy spots smoke from the side of a nearby mountain, and ambur asks strix to scout it out, in case there's trouble. but it's just a house with a chimney.

they keep moving.