The light of midmorning peeked through the trees as Rye and I finished the last leg of our walk. As Rye had promised, we had gotten up at first light to groggily trudge the last ten miles to Amber Meadow. I was at least aware of what was in store for us, so it wasn't nearly as unpleasant as we had feared. We didn't really have much to talk about, seeing as the topics most on our minds were topics we preferred to keep to ourselves.

Besides, I hadn't exactly figured out how to get across to Rye that this world might somehow be the human world I had left behind. I hadn't even been able to comprehend it entirely myself. What did this mean for my past? How did this happen? Was everyone I knew dead? Had the humanity I knew died out or abandoned the region? Could it be that everything actually fine and the Gray Continent was just some massive nature preserve? Was this even my world or some parallel universe?

'Agh, my head hurts.'

Eventually, we stumbled across a large sign in the road, ahead of which the trees of the forest gradually thinned out into a meadow of tall, yellowish grass. Rye stepped forward to read the sign for me.

"Warning. The area ahead has been classified as a mystery dungeon by the Gray Proper Expeditionary Society. Enter with caution."

Swallowing hard, I ambled forth past the sign, Rye following close behind. As the trees began to become fewer and farther in between, I could almost feel the air around me growing colder, as if someone or something were watching me. Rye seemed to take notice of my unease at this, so he put a hand on my shoulder.

"D-don't worry, Beck, they all feel like this. Once you go into a mystery dungeon, you start feeling all weird. N-nothing to worry about.", he said reassuringly. "It's okay, w-we'll do this together, alright?"

With a shiver, I nodded, so we continued heading deeper into the mystery dungeon.

Amber Meadow

1F

'Ugh, talk about deja vu.'

Unpleasant images of Quinite Woods began to flash through my head as I looked into the labyrinthine pathways leading out of the clearing we had found ourselves in. Looking over at Rye, I could tell he was uneasy about this, too, though I could infer it wasn't as bad as my untold dread, seeing as he had done this before. As such, he was the first to head down one of the paths, gesturing me to follow.

As we walked through the seemingly endless rows of grass, we stopped as a loud, challenging yowl rang through the air. Ahead, a Purrloin stared us down, its fur standing on end.

"D-don't panic, it's just a feral. Nothing to worry about.", Rye muttered to himself before giving me a sideways glance. "No offense."

The Purrloin, evidently unfazed by our non-aggression, began to charge towards us, letting out a fierce yell. Looking around panickedly, I noticed the tall grass on the side of the path.

'Why don't we just go through here? I mean, surely there isn't anything stopping us, right?'

I began trying to trudge through the grass, only to be tangled up in weeds and briers. What was worse, more were now emerging and they appeared to be trying to pull me deeper into the brush.

"Beck! No!", I heard Rye yell.

As Rye grabbed onto me and began trying to pull me out, I desperately searched for whatever I had on hand to free myself. Eventually, I felt a hard spot on my chest with my free paw.

'My scalchop!'

Although it was small and undeveloped, I decided that would be enough. With a powerful swing, I managed to slice through one of the briers that had tightly wrapped itself around my now-bleeding leg, sending it retreating into the brush. The rest of the rogue grasses seemed to get the idea and violently threw me back onto the path. However, I didn't get much reprieve, as the Purrloin pounced on me with its claws out.

Cringing from the Fake Out attack, I dropped my scalchop, opening myself up for another attack. Before it could strike me further, Rye slammed his tail into the Purrloin in a Pound attack, sending it flying. Grabbing for my scalchop, I ran at it and slashed it in the chest several times. That was apparently enough to do it in, as the Purrloin collapsed quickly thereafter. Shakily panting and legs quaking, I kept my scalchop trained on the thing warily.

"B-Beck, it's fainted, y-you're okay now...", Rye reassured me. As the energy from my adrenaline rush faded, I collapsed into Rye's arms a crying mess. A couple minutes of emotional recovery and an Oran later, we warily continued down the path, eventually entering into a clearing. In the center of it, a large earthen mound stood, leading upwards into the grass.

"Oh, hey, a staircase! Nice!", Rye beamed.

'...how and why are there stairs in the middle of a meadow? What is even anything anymore?'

Rye began walking up the dirt stairs while I stared dumbfounded at the sight.

"D-don't worry, stairs are okay, the dungeon won't try to take you again.", he reassured me.

Holding my scalchop tight, I decided to take his word for it and nervously followed him through the grass obscuring the top of the staircase.

Amber Meadow

2F

"S-see? We're okay.", Rye said, patting me on the back. "Basically, the stairs let you into other floors without the dungeon throwing you out or... er, yeah..."

Now silent, we walked through the clearing laid out before us, my paw still clutching my scalchop. As we approached one of the paths leading out, I suddenly fell to the ground. Turning to see what I had slipped on, I saw a medium-sized seed on the ground. Picking it up, Rye examined it closely.

"Oh, hey, a Stun Seed! Nice job, Beck!", he exclaimed.

"Sh-swha...?", I asked. To me, it looked just the same as any other seed.

"Oh, uh, there's really subtle differences between them, Ms. May spent a whole week drilling me on them. See how the ridges look more... er, bolt-like than other seeds?", Rye explained.

Nope, still looked the same. Maybe I'd see it once I got more experience with them. Putting the seed up, we trudged on. While we did come across our fair share of ferals, I had learned my lesson about trying to take shortcuts, and we thus weren't caught off guard as we had been with the Purrloin. As such, we reached the next staircase without too much incident.

"I'm guessing from the notice that the scarf shouldn't be far now. Maybe it's on the next floor, keep an eye out.", Rye said as we approached the earthen stairs.

Amber Meadow

3F

"Priii!"

The Patrat we were facing off against fled in fear as I finished off a Water Gun attack. We had been searching the floor for well over twenty minutes by this point, and it was starting to show. With no trees to block the relentless sun out, I was quickly growing fatigued and sweaty. Of course, Rye looked just fine, being a grass-type. Lucky.

Turning a corner, a sudden change in the yellow coloring caught my eye. A pink scarf was hanging over a particularly thick stalk of grass in the clearing ahead. Rye's eyes lit up.

"Th-that's it! Let's go and-"

"Oi! Not so fast!"

Rye shrank back as a blue, bird-like Pokémon entered the clearing, giving an intimidating glare.

"Paws off. The shiny thing's mine.", the Murkrow said. "Finder's keepers."

I quickly drew my scalchop, prompting a harsh laugh from Murkrow.

"Alright, then, you wanna fight for it? Have at you, then."

Murkrow immediately flew up and divebombed towards us. I shot a Water Gun at him, but that didn't stop him from flying into Rye, delivering a hard Peck to his gut. With a yell of pain, Rye glared at him with a Leer, his eyes glowing red. With a shudder, the Murkrow hopped back, facing the two of us down.

A tense moment passed where we watched each other, anticipating our opponent's next move. As the standoff continued, I felt through our bag for anything we could use. Eventually, my paw wrapped around a familiar roundish object. Pulling the Stun Seed out, I stood my ground as Murkrow suddenly charged towards me. I threw the seed at him, where it hit him square in the forehead before bursting. Murkrow seized up and fell to the ground, paralyzed. Seeing opportunity, Rye forcefully put a hand on his head, and as I watched, his wounds seemed to heal up as Murkrow painfully gasped. After a moment, Murkrow went limp, his energy spent. Rye stared at his hands in awe.

"Th-that was too powerful to be an Absorb... I-I think I learned Mega Drain!", he said excitedly. As he celebrated his new technique, I pulled Nidoran's Pecha scarf down, slipping it into our bag. With our mission done, I found myself asking an important question.

'How do we get out of here?'

As if to answer, Rye pulled out his badge and pressed it to the scarf. With a flash of light, he was gone, presumably having been teleported out of the dungeon. As I dug for my badge, I heard a weak groan coming from Murkrow.

"D-don't leave me in here... I just wanted... agh, I don't want the dungeon to take me!", he moaned. Gone was the challenging fire in his eyes, replaced by a look of pleading and desperation. I hesitated for a moment before sighing.

"Shaah...", I said, hoisting the exhausted Murkrow onto my back.

"Thank you, I-I won't forget thi- ow, ow, watch the wing!", he yelped as I pressed my badge against the scarf. A white light quickly enveloped me as the two of us disappeared from the dungeon.

A few seconds passed before I found myself on the ground again, the light around me giving way to the road just outside the meadow. Rye was sitting under the warning sign, glad at my arrival. His contentedness quickly melted away as I gently put my passenger down.

"Y-you brought Murkrow with you?", he asked.

Shooting him a look, I gestured towards the dungeon with a "Shaa!". After a moment of consideration, Rye groaned and nodded.

"W-we aren't going to carry him back to Impetus, are we?", he asked. I shook my head, sitting down on the side of the road and offering a seat to the Treecko. As he sat down, Murkrow's paralysis finally wore off. As he shakily stood up, he turned to face us. Giving a simple nod of gratitude, he pulled a seed from his hat-like head feathers and put it in my paws. I handed it to Rye, who examined it before his eyes widened.

"Th-this is a Reviver Seed! W-we can't take this, we..."

He trailed off as Murkrow hobbled away, presumably to return home. Exchanging shocked glances, Rye and I put the seed away before leaning our backs against the signpost.

We'd start the journey home later, we figured. For now, I'd say we had earned some rest.

Author's Note: I hate to ask for them like this, but keep the reviews coming, please. They really help in terms of motivation and making the story better. Thank you for putting up with my bullshit so far, and stay hydrated.