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.

basil remarks that they're coming up on a river, and asks the midnight crew what their plan for crossing it is. ambur asks sherry and strix to scout ahead, see how harsh the river is, and how easy it might be to ford, while the rest of the convoy takes another brief rest.

strix returns with a report: the river is wide and harsh, and there's some locals skulking around its banks. better to avoid them. we'll cross the delta down at the beach instead. oh also there's also a ship out in sashimi bay though. a scorched ship waving a gator-skull flag. those god damn pirates again.

they head down toward the beach, taking another short rest right before cresting the last hill. hazy scouts ahead himself, gazing out at the ship through his telescope. there's another flag -- a silver wing. the crew has changed significantly too, after most of them got arrested. that fucking bellsprout has apparently joined them. also the captain's eyes are bright red, like chip's were, like the lugia's are.

they also seem to be missing two of the three rowboats they should have. either those are just gone, or there's a small party of pirates somewhere along the river. were those the "locals" that strix spotted?

one of the teams keeps watch while the rest nap. and as night falls, they get moving.

ambur focuses their dark type energy, concentrating on blanketing the convoy in shade, keeping them unseen. the pirates are having an incredibly loud party, piercing trumpets and cacophanous singing echoing across the bay. it's unlikely they'll spot us.

upriver, however, is another group, making conversation among themselves. sherry scouts ahead, keeping hidden via ghostly stealth, and reports back that they're camped out, staying put, and mostly occupied with their own matters -- except one, a tall bird with wide eyes, staring out across the sand, keeping watch.

the terrain is getting difficult, wagon wheels sinking into wet sand. hazy spots the xatu, and it's staring right back at him, squinting slightly, trying to peer through the dark-type void that ambur's hiding the whole party behind.

sizzle's wagon gets stuck. strix tries to push it free but can't, so hazy switches carts, letting the zebstrika pull the lead cart in his place. it takes a lot of effort, but eventually he wrenches the stuck wheel free. it's definitely very wonky now.

they've made it aross the river delta, but there's still a ways to go before they're out of the xatu's sight, so they keep on moving.

once they're safely out of range of the pirates, they head slightly inland -- it's unwise to keep trekking across wet sand when the wagons are already this badly beat up.

hazy senses a mystery dungeon nearby. according to ambur's map, it's part of an established transit path stretching from nori town to the western horn of sashimi coast. hazy really doesn't wanna go back into a dungeon. neither does ambur. they put it to a vote among the rest of the convoy. everyone votes no.

they keep moving. two days to nori.

the rest of the journey is uneventful. cresting the hill into nori, the convoy is met with an approaching crowd of pokémon -- guildmaster giri, sriracha, syr orion, dr altair, and a squad of golurk. ambur insists on getting to the guildhall and getting everyone checked out, dismissing any and all questions, even when hazy asks how long they've been gone. giri reluctantly agrees, and sriracha complains about having to walk all the way back after being made to march out of town to meet them.

arriving at the guild, orion finally answers hazy's question. it's been two weeks. meaning the couple months they spent in the dungeon only came out to about a week of real-world time. orion also asks what the deal with the roaring moon is, since it looks kinda weird. ambur implies that it has time manipulation powers.

hazy remembers the weird pink sword and thinks about showing it to orion.

everyone's sent for a checkup at the guild's nurse. altair interrutps the midnight crew as they're leaving, asking to speak with them in private later.

ambur walks in right as sherry gets dismissed, the chansey very confused by this weird misdreavus insisting all its oddities are Very Normal. hazy's pretty badly bruised and scuffed but looks fine otherwise. ambur looks... fine? umbreons aren't really supposed to be pink though. plus they're giving off some weird energy. ambur says yeah i get that a lot.

they get sent off to bed, ambur and hazy both sleeping with their bags held close. neither of them trusts this guild enough to trust that their shit won't get stolen.

orion greets them the next morning, reading a book in the lobby. syr rigel is also there, complaining about having to work in the marsh dungeon. ambur asks if he's aware of where they've been for the past two weeks. rigel says no. ambur says shut the fuck up then.

orion bonks him on the head with his book before he can talk back, then escorts the midnight crew to giri's office, where altair is waiting for them. ambur jokingly worries about what they'll walk in on him and giri doing together. orion says probably fighting about trade deals. hazy says yeah, "trade deals". ambur says yeah, "fighting".

altair is alone, though. he explains that he's heard testimony from the other rescue teams regarding the midnight crew's antics in the dungeon -- and he compliments them on saving most of the missing teams. unfortunate what happened to the rest. ambur explains that the dungeon was so badly decayed that some of them just didn't make it through to the other side. altair offers his sincere condolences. ambur says yeah sure.

he does ask, though, for their explanation regarding a strange "explosion" at one of the exit gates they attempted to restore, a pillar of pink light and spires of violet chrome reported in every team's debriefing. ambur doesn't answer, hazy says they have no idea what he's talking about.

he asks about another incident in the village, of someone attempting to open a magnagate. he knows ambur knows what entercards are, so surely they can offer some insight on this "incident". ambur says yeah no shit i know what entercards are, i'm a hobbyist dungeon researcher. you received my research request. you know this already. so what are you really after?

realising he's not getting any information out of them, altair tries a different tactic. every single team he interrogated mentioned various instances of the midnight crew "turning giant". no questions this time, he knows they know what he's talking about. he demands they hand over their wishing stones.

before hazy can hit him with a point-blank hyper beam, ambur very firmly states that the conversation is over, that they will be taking their leave now, and that any further attempts at interrogation, or any attempt at theft of their personal property, will be met with violence. they walk out.

they surprise gumdrop by showing up at the library finally, after two weeks of being gone. she tried to find them at the guild, but they'd already gone off on their mission. hazy tells her some of the details of their experience, and she says it probably would've helped to have the book beforehand.

she wasn't able to recover everything, but she did get quite a lot of info out of it. she hands the book back to ambur, along with a notebook full of transcribed passages. she says it's a little dense and hard to understand -- even the fully readable pages were very fragmented, the author only writing the conclusions to their musings and not the full thought process.

ambur thanks her for her help, pocketing the notebook. they start heading out of town, eager to get back to pannacotta after this long vacation away from home.

then they remember wisp and astra. they turn around and make their way to the lighthouse inn to see if they've returned yet.