Rashad glanced around the town center as he walked down the path from the guild hall. Most of the residents had returned to their homes for lunch as he made his way towards the south exit of town. The wind picked up slightly as black clouds began to gather further south, the tip of mountain range being surrounded in the storm.

Rashad looked up towards the mountain and frowned, and in an instant, he was running towards the mountain range, barely able to be seen.


Adela sighed, her tail flickering as the light brightened her room. The glow brightened the surroundings that the sunlight from the window couldn't reach. Her tail occasionally twitched, causing the light to spasm and move shadows around the room, her wool crackling with electricity as she stared at the door.

"Starsky said my new partner should be here soon, and they'll have my gear for me… Hopefully this isn't a trainwreck…"

She sighed as the door was pushed open slightly, a green fanned tail poking inside. "Knock knock, I believe this is supposed to be the newbie's room, right?"

Before Adela had a chance to response, the newcomer slid into the room, the green reptilian figure letting out a small laugh as she placed a box on the ground in front of Adela. "Welcome to the family! Since I've been here a little longer, they asked me if I could bring you your basic gear, especially since we're gonna be working together now!"

"There's no way this can end well…"

Adela stared at the snake as it opened the box, revealing a shoulderbag with a badge clipped onto it. The snake pulled out the bag and opened it, revealing a few seeds and berries, "It doesn't look like much, but the guild provides all new recruits three Reviver Seeds upon entry! These things are so rare nowadays, getting a few of them right away is huge! The berries are the standard Oran, Pecha, Cheri, easy stuff!"

Adela let her put the bag around her neck, noting that it was easy for her to open and reach into the bag with her muzzle. She looked back up to the Snivy, standing up, "Well, um… My name is Adele, you are…? And where are we supposed to go now?"

"Micah, and I'm supposed to show you around our little town here, so let's get going!"


The Snivy ran ahead of Adela, quickly sliding down the hill the guild was perched on and into the town below. "Right here below the guild we have the public care center! The Audino and others inside will help aid you if you're injured. Of course, since we're part of the guild we have our own med center back at the base, but in case of emergencies, it's good to know about this."

Micah ran across the street from it and stood at the entrance to another larger brick building, patting it and smiling, "This is gonna be one of the places you visit most! This is the Trio Storage building, and they'll let you store any gear that you can't keep with you. Just head inside and talk to the clerks, they'll help you!"


"Heeeeello!" As Adela and Micah entered the storage building, they were greeted with a singsong voice from behind the counter. A garish figure popped up from behind the counter, its lanky arms waving wildly as it greeted the duo.

"Welcome to Trio storage, I'm Arnold and I'm more than happy to help today.~" The Mime's singsong voice echoed through the building as they walked up to the front desk.

Micah sighed, "Hello Mitch, we need to open a vault for my friend here, her name is Adela, nothing to store yet, but she will soon."

"Aaaah, new recruits, good to see you finally joined up with them Micah, my intuition is never wrong, and I knew you would have a chance there!"

Micah grabbed Adela and pulled her out of the building as quickly as possible grinding her teeth as she frowned at 'Mitch'.


"Never speak to me about him." Micah said, then turned and started walking away, her tail spread wide.

Adela nodded and was quickly led down the street, with Micah stopping at a stall that was set up in the middle of the road. "This is the Kecleon Brother's stall, they used to have an actual building, but there was an accident and they had to relocate for now. Weird that they aren't around right now…"

"An accident? What happened and should I avoid them? Where… I'm from, accidents that destroy buildings tend to not… Be accidents." Adela glanced at the Snivy, frowning as her wool began to crackle.

"The Kecleon brothers are from a long line of honest business Pokemon, they wouldn't do anything like that! No, one of their clients had come in one day, a fire type, and turned out that they had caught a cold or something. Just a few sneezes and there was a lot of fire around there. Thankfully the guildmaster got a few people over there and kept the fire from spreading, but their shop was badly burnt." Micah sighed and motioned for Adela to follow her, leading her down a side road and waving her hand towards a large, charred building.

"The police investigated afterwards, and there was no sign of any plans to do this, they questioned both the brothers and the Charizard who caused it. Anyway… I showed you most of the important stuff! There's one more place…" Adela gave one more look back at the charred remains of the building as Micah led her away from it and into a new building bustling with activity.

"Um… Micah, what is this? It's a little busy for me…" Adela jumped back slightly as an avian Pokemon flew right past her face, causing her to flinch a bit after. "A-a lot too busy for me."

"It's just a gathering place for explorers to rest, relax, and eat after their travels, our attraction is over here." Micah laughed and shook her head, motioning for Adela to follow her over to a billboard next to the counter, various notes stuck to it as she tapped it lightly.

"I've done my homework! This here is a freelance job board, people who don't want or don't trust the guild to do their jobs post it here, and people come here to do them. Even though technically we're encouraged to… Let the guild handle arrangements, there's no real rule against us doing jobs like this in our spare time!~"

Adela glared at the snake, frowning, "Come on! I'm not even ready by the guild's standards, what makes you think I'm gonna agree to doing these jobs?"

"The jobs vary in difficulty, and a lot of them are far easier than the early missions of the guild! A lot of them tend to be fetch missions to get an item, so we go in, get the item, teleport out. The hardest missions are probably the escort ones, which I would avoid personally."

Adela sighed and nodded, "Alright, you win, we'll do these jobs on the side. Right now I just want to get back to the guild, get back to my room, and just sleep. A lot happened these last few days, and I just need time to process it."

Micah flinched as she nodded, leading Adela back out of the meeting hall, "W-well, I understand, I do… But we can't go back just yet. The guildmaster told me I was supposed to, um… Take you to the Dojo here, and we're supposed to be put through a pseudo Mystery Dungeon."

"A… Mystery Dungeon? You're gonna need to clarify Micah, I don't know what that is."

Micah looked over at Adela, her eyebrow rising slightly, "You don't? Mystery Dungeons are a huge concern… Basically they're a place where wild magic is teeming, and it makes the landscape unpredictable. I don't know a lot about them, but people say that the landscape becomes mazelike and impossible to mark, so you can't use that to know where you've been, you can only move forward."

"That's what I'm getting into?! No one told me about magic wilderness and mazes!"

"Woah there Adela, calm down. This is a pretty well known thing around here, most of us don't need to be told about it. Look… Let's just get to the Dojo and you'll see that Mystery Dungeons aren't that bad once you learn how to go through them. They're mostly dangerous to civilians who wander into them without meaning to."


Not long after, Micah had successfully drug Adela to the Dojo and led her to the entrance. "Here we are, the guildmaster said that we should just enter, apparently she has an arrangement with the owner. The guild gets special treatment when needing this place for training."

"Special treatment…?" Adela glanced over to Micah as the door to the building began to open, "And what are we trying to do in there?"

Micah smiled, her tail fanning out at she motioned for Adela to follow her, "We make it to the end and beat the boss of course! Come on, it can't be that hard.~"


Starsky landed on the steps in front of the door to Bas' office and gave it a tap with his beak before pushing it open. "Look Bas, I've got to talk to you. Don't you think the test you set up might be a bit too much?"

Bas glanced up from her desk and sighed, jumping up and over it to Starsky. "I know you don't approve of it, but we can only take the best, Starsky! We've had too many poor recruits in the past that ended up getting seriously injured trying to handle the jobs we get."

"I know that Bas, I know that far better than you do! Those recruits were under my wing, you think I don't realize how much danger this can lead to?" Starsky furrowed his brow, the feathers on his chest rising as he glared at her.

"I didn't say that, I know. I'm just telling you why our entrance exam is so rough. Don't worry, they aren't in any real danger though. If anything goes wrong, Connor will make sure the Dojo is under control and that we can get them out safely."

Starsky frowned and shook his head, "I'm heading there now, I trust Connor, but I don't trust that wild magic he's been trying to control with that Dojo of his. It's way too dangerous to handle that stuff."

Bas shrugged and walked over to Starsky, waving her hand. "It's a dangerous game, sure, but he's kept it under control so far without any risk to the town, so we can't really say much. Better to be on his good side."

"Where are you going Bas?"

"Heh, I'm always around for the new recruits' tests, even if they never see me there."


"The air here is… stagnant… It's like nothing has ever been in here…"

Adela glanced around the room as her tail glew, lighting up the rocky space around them. "It's so dark… I can barely see a few steps ahead of me, it's like the darkness isn't normal…"

"You're telling me! I've gotta stick close to you or I won't be able to see anything at all. Thankfully this area seems pretty quiet." Micah smiled next to Adela and waved her hand forward, walking and leading the way.

"Um, didn't you just say you needed me to see?" Adela ran to catch up with Micah, pausing and reaching out to bite down on her hand before she ran off.

"H-hey! What's that for?" Micah jumped as she grabbed her hand, causing Adela to quickly shush her and pull her down a side passage.

"Quiet, I could've sworn I heard something…"