"I get why they call it the Dark Cavern," Fennekin mumbled to nobody in particular as she stared down the almost unnaturally black hole in the rock in front of them. "Will we even be able to see down there?"

"Aipom said that there's a little bit of light in there," Yamper responded as he rummaged through the team's exploration bag. "Even if not, you're a fire type, so we could always have you light something to lead our way!"

"Other Pokémon would immediately know we're there," she shook her head, "so hopefully we don't have to resort to that. What are you looking for, anyways? I thought we went through everything in there while at the bank."

"There they are!" Yamper exclaimed as he pulled out two dull green strips of cloth, striped with bits of even darker green. "I snuck these in while you two weren't looking. It's a gift from the rest of the recruits to you two!"

Ethan looked at the two strips, subconsciously cocking his head slightly to the side. They looked well-made, but rather plain. "Rags?" he asked.

"They're exploration team scarves!" Fennekin beamed, running up to Yamper and studying them intently. "They're not required by any means, but a lot of exploration teams will wear them to show they're a part of a team." She looked to Yamper, then back at the scarves before looking crestfallen. "Yamper, there's only two. There's three of us."

"We got them for you two!" he explained. "We're all on the same 'team' as recruits, but you two are the only ones who already have an actual team formed, so we wanted to get you scarves to show it! Here, try them on!"

Ethan walked to Yamper, and by the time he got to him, Fennekin had already begun putting hers around her neck and tying it off. "Where did you get these?" she asked. "You said you got them from the bank, does that mean you already had them?"

"We bought them yesterday, then told Kangaskhan to give them to whoever was taking you on an exploration. There's a Pokémon in the market named Leavanny who makes them, so we bought two. These are just the basic ones, but once you rank up or go on certain explorations, you're allowed to get different colors, patterns, and types of scarves."

"That's so nice of you all!" Fennekin's eyes began glistening, and her breathing became unstable. "I don't even know what to say!"

"It's nothing," Yamper laughed nervously, taking a small step away from her. "Really, it wasn't that much money. We just thought it would be a little something nice to give you two as a celebration of joining the Academy."

"Thanks," Ethan smiled as he finished tying the scarf around his neck. "You guys all seem really nice."

"Everybody in the Academy is!" Yamper exclaimed. "Being a recruit is tough, so why not all have fun together?"

Fennekin jumped up, then wiped the dampening fur around her eyes. "That's so great! And speaking of nice, thanks so much for being willing to take us on a mission of yours! I just really hope bringing us along won't slow you down…"

"It'll be fine!" Yamper dismissed her concerns with a wave of one of his front paws. "I always loved going with other Pokémon on their missions when I was new, so when Luxio asked me, I immediately said yes! Even if we do faint and can't finish the mission, we'll be able to look back at it and learn from it!"

"Yeah…" Fennekin looked straight at him, then nodded her head vigorously. "Yeah, you're right! Come on, let's go; let's try to get back to the Academy by sunset!"

"Lead the way, you two!"

Dark Cavern

B1F

"I can hardly see my own hands in front of my face," Ethan grumbled as he looked around the room they were currently in.

"Some dungeons are like that," Yamper explained as he walked up next to Ethan. "Be careful when going through the corridors, since you can't see very far down them. There could be Pokémon waiting there to attack you!"

"Sounds fun," he sighed as he started walking to the exit of the room located on the far wall from where they currently were. There was another exit on his left, but something made him go for the one right ahead of him instead. Is that what instinct felt like? Because if so, instinct felt an awful lot like not actually knowing what to do and making a complete guess. But they were following him, so he had to be the one deciding where to go. Not like they could know the way, either, if this was a Mystery Dungeon too. The concept still confused him.

"Is there any way to make it brighter in here?" Fennekin wondered aloud. "I bet if I cast Ember down the hallway, we could see further!"

"The darkness in here doesn't quite work like that," Yamper responded, his voice faint to Ethan. When he turned to look back, he could see that Yamper was at the end of the line, Fennekin in between the two of them. "If you have an item called a luminous orb you can dispel the darkness on a floor, but otherwise, you have to just be careful."

As Ethan opened his mouth to respond, he walked into a small room and almost jumped; he could see a Pokémon to his left that hadn't been there before! Instinctually, he flooded his body with electricity and sent it towards whatever was next to him. By the time he was able to process what was going on, there was a furry gray Pokémon lying on the ground in front of him. Had he really knocked it out with one Thundershock?

"A critical hit!" Yamper exclaimed. "Great job!"

"What's a critical hit?" Ethan and Fennekin both asked in unison.

"Sometimes, your move has just the right amount of power and hits a Pokémon just right that it does a lot more damage and can even break through a Pokémon's defenses! Some moves are more likely to get a critical hit than others, but even then you just have to hope you get one."

Fennekin looked down at the Pokémon lying on the ground, her face tightening slightly in worry. "Is this Pokémon going to be okay? It looked like it got hit hard."

"This Poochyena will be just fine," Yamper reassured her. "It just got knocked out is all. Pretty soon, it'll wake up and be on its way."

"We should probably start moving before it does so." Ethan looked around the room, eyes stopping upon seeing a small hint of blue in the corner, a noticeable change from the gray and brown dirt floor. "What's that over there?"

The three Pokémon walked to the corner of the small room, and Yamper excitedly reached down to pick up a dusty blue orb. "It's a rollcall orb!"

"What does that orb do?" Fennekin asked. "Does it work like the escape orb Togetic gave us?"

"Kind of." He handed it to Ethan, who put it in their item bag. "If we ever get separated on a floor, you can break it and we'll all be brought to you! They can be nice to keep with you, just in case."

"I'll be staying close to you two," Fennekin mumbled. "This place gives me the creeps!"

"If you ever want," Yamper continued, "you could split up in a dungeon to cover more ground! I prefer to go with my teammates, because then we can all fight together. It's a lot easier to get overwhelmed when you're all alone than if you're with others. You also get to spend more time with your friends!"

Fennekin looked around the room, then back to Ethan and Yamper. "I think it's probably better if we stay together, especially since this is our first true mission. I don't think it would look good if you went back and said that you let us wander alone…"

"Luxio might be mad," he laughed, "but I bet Cinccino would be proud of you two! If you do want to try, just let me know and we can split up."

Ethan looked to Fennekin briefly and nodded in agreement. "Fennekin's right, I don't want to split up. I guess we'll keep this orb for emergencies, though."

Yamper barked excitedly. "You're the leader on this mission. We'll do as you say!"

Leader. That was still kind of strange to think about. He was well-suited for it, he supposed, since he legitimately couldn't remember a day where he hadn't been in a mystery dungeon. That at least had to count for something, didn't it?

Now was not the time for pondering his amnesia. Ethan continued scanning the room that they were in, and found nothing else save for an exit out that was left of where he had come in. Fennekin and Yamper fell in as he moved towards it, and the three started down a long and dark hallway virtually indiscernible from the previous one. Fennekin always followed close behind him, but he could swear that his tail was brushing a few stray hairs in her coat. Was she following even closer to him than normal?

Before he could mention anything, he walked into another small room, and after a quick glance around, confirmed that there were no other Pokémon in it.

"The stairs are in this room!" Yamper exclaimed as they walked in. It was hard to see in the darkness, but a hole of darkness even more dark than the regular floor was in the middle of the room. Unlike the Misty Forest where they had to ascend the mystery dungeon, it seemed that they were going to have to go down in this one. Would that change how the dungeon worked? He hated the thought of it getting even darker as they went down.

Only one way to find out, he supposed.

Dark Cavern

B2F

Thankfully, the darkness seemed to be the same as the floor above them. That still meant it was frustratingly dark, but at least it didn't get even worse. Ethan's eyes were adjusting, even; he still couldn't see down the hallways very far, but at least he could make out the details of the room they were in better. It was long, probably a few minutes walk from one end to the other, but did not seem to be very wide. The stairs had dropped them down into the middle of the room, so it seemed unlikely that they would be surprised by any Pokémon. Looking around him to make sure that Fennekin and Yamper had come down with him, he set out walking towards the hallway right in front of him.

"Hey, Fennekin?" he heard Yamper ask. "Are you having trouble seeing Ethan or something?"

"Ethan?" she repeated. "No, I can see him just fine. Why?"

"Well, you're really close to him. I was just wondering if you were aware."

"Oh!" she sputtered. "Oh, uh, um, no, I, uh, I, I wasn't. Sorry!"

"It's fine," he replied slowly, not entirely sure what to make of the situation. She sounded almost embarrassed to be that close to him, but Yamper's tone didn't really sound like she should be.

Before Ethan could think much longer on it, he walked into a room much smaller than the previous one, a tight square with a lump of sand in the corner between two different pathways out. The sand was curious, much brighter than the dark earth below them and specked with stripes of...and it moved. Shifted, more like.

"That's a Sandile!" Yamper sharply whispered behind them. "It's a ground type, so our electric moves won't work on it. We're also all weak to ground types, so we'll have to be careful. It's sleeping right now, though, so we have some time to prepare."

"Can we just walk quietly?" Ethan asked. "We could try to sneak around it so we don't have to fight."

Yamper's response started with a single shake of his head. "Where it is, it'll hear us no matter how we try to sneak past it."

"Let's go back to the other room and find a way around," Fennekin stated. "If none of our moves are good against it and it's good against all of us, it seems dangerous to try and fight it."

"We may have to come here eventually," Yamper said. "It's possible that that's the only way to the stairs."

"There's three of us," Ethan pointed out, "and one of it. And I think I have moves that aren't electric type?"

"Your Quick Attack is a normal type move! And even if its ground type moves are super effective against me, my fire attacks will do normal damage against it."

"You know Quick Attack?" Yamper asked, looking at Ethan. "Try hitting that Sandile from a distance, it will probably have to take some time moving towards you and you can hit it in the meantime."

"I could use Quick Attack and Fennekin could use Ember," Ethan thought out loud. "Yamper, do you have anything that can hit Pokémon far away?"

"I know Dig, which takes a little bit to work. What you could do is have me go underground, and when that Sandile comes towards you, I can spring up and hit it with an attack!"

"That sounds good." Ethan took a deep breath, then let it out sharply. "Are you two ready?"

"On you!" Yamper whispered. "As soon as you attack, I'll go underground. Just make sure to not move closer, because we're trying to lure the Sandile towards us."

Ethan responded only with a single quick nod before leaping towards the Sandile, slamming into it before using the pushback to propel himself back to where he started. One ear grew warm as a small ball of fire flew past him, landing squarely on the Sandile's face. Almost as soon as he steadied himself, the Sandile leapt up and charged towards them. Instinctively, Ethan jumped forward with another Quick Attack. Before Fennekin could even use Ember again, the Sandile quickly turned and ran, almost sinking into the ground with how fast it managed to burrow away.

"Great job, you two!" Ethan heard Yamper exclaim from his right. Apparently, Yamper did not bother to fully get out of the ground, as only half of him was visible sticking out from the dirt. "I didn't see it, obviously, but you're here and the Sandile isn't!"

"That worked really great!" Fennekin beamed. "Ethan, you're really good at this!"

"I guess," he admitted. "It helped that we had some time to think and we didn't have that Sandile right in our faces. Gave us time to think."

"It's always important to stop and think," Yamper responded in an almost professorly tone. "Of course, don't stop too long, because then you'll get noticed, or another Pokémon will come along and attack!"

"Speaking of," Fennekin said, "we should probably get moving. Some other Pokémon might have heard that fight, and I don't want to have to fight if we don't need to!"

Ethan nodded his head. "Agreed. We made that plan so we could go down this hallway, so what do you say we go and see where it leads?"

Yamper fell in behind Fennekin. "Take the lead!"

Slowly, Ethan walked forward through the narrow hallway the Sandile had been sleeping by. Not too slowly, of course, but if that Sandile was sleeping, then what else might be? He'd hate for them to have to retreat or faint because he was careless and disturbed some powerful sleeping Pokémon. Especially with how dark the cave was, they could be anywhere!

Thankfully the hallway was short, and opened up into a small room with no other exits. Nothing was moving at least, so they wouldn't have to fight anything in here. Right as he thought to turn around and go back, however, his eye caught sight of what appeared to be an area of extra-dark darkness in the corner of the room. Could it be? A smile grew on his face as he walked a few steps closer; the stairs!

Dark Cavern

B3F

"The stairs!" Fennekin almost squealed as they stepped foot on the next floor of the Dark Cavern.

"Already?" Ethan asked.

"Where the stairs are is also random," Yamper explained, "and sometimes you get lucky like we just did! We can look around for items and Pokémon if you want, or we can move on; it's up to you."

A quick scan of the room confirmed what Fennekin said; they were in a medium-sized room, and the stairs were about halfway between them and one of the four hallways, one on each side of the room. Maybe there were useful things elsewhere on the floor, but the way he saw it, the three of them had a mission. The sooner they got to it and the fewer chances they had to get ambushed, the better.

Dark Cavern

B4F

"Has it gotten darker?" Ethan asked once Yamper joined them after descending the stairs. He could make out the room they were in, but only barely; small, with two exits, one in front and one behind them. There appeared to be, of all things, an apple near the exit behind them. How did that get all the way down here?

"Some dungeons get darker the further into them you go," he confirmed. "It was already dark in here, though, so we'll be used to fighting somewhere we have trouble seeing."

He supposed that made sense. But first, the apple; who had brought it down here? When he walked up to it and crouched down to inspect it, he heard Fennekin behind him speak up. "Make sure to hold onto that," she said. "We might get hungry later, and it'll be good to have food."

The apple seemed...passable, at least, when he picked it up. Sure it was dusty and didn't exactly seem fresh, but he could clean the dust off and it wasn't like it had gone bad. "Will we really be down here that long?"

"Maybe not in here," Yamper said, "but somewhere else you might be; you could always save the apple for then."

"Do we need it? The bag Cinccino and Roserade gave us has some berries in there, and we could always eat those instead."

"An apple will fill you up more," he explained. "Besides, berries have special properties, like healing your injuries or curing conditions. You'll want to save those for when you're in trouble, while an apple you can have whenever you need it."

Made sense, he supposed. As he put it in their bag, he figured he would go down the path they were already by; not like they had any reason to choose one over the other. Like all the others it was narrow, and partway through made a sharp turn left that Ethan gently peeked down to make sure nothing was waiting right around the corner. Not that he would really be able to see anything, anyways.

The hallway continued along for a while, and as soon as he stepped out into a large room, Ethan felt two attacks slam into him, one on each side.

"There's two of them!" Fennekin yelled before shooting an Ember at the one to his right. The one she aimed at appeared to be a small, walking stone, and the other a flying purple bat with no eyes. Instinctively he charged up electricity to hit the bat Pokémon, but what types would be effective against it? Usually he relied on Fennekin to tell him. Before he realized it, the electricity flew out of his body, but felt different than before. Whereas Thundershock felt like he threw the electricity at a Pokémon, this felt almost as if it just...leaked out of him. It must've done some damage, because the Pokémon's flying became erratic and it struggled to stay in the air. He felt another attack come from behind, but the one in front was more focused on staying airborne than attacking him.

"You've paralyzed it!" Yamper yelled as Ethan felt another hot Ember fly behind him. "Hit it with electric-type moves, now!"

Paralyzed? He wasn't sure what that was or how he did it, but he did know how to use electric moves. Quickly he charged up and released a Thundershock, and the Pokémon fell right down to the ground, unconscious. More fire behind him, followed by the sounds of running, told him that Fennekin had defeated the other Pokémon. "Are you okay?" she asked, worry clear in her voice.

"I'm fine," he dismissed, not taking his eyes off the bat Pokémon. "What were those two? I've never seen anything like them."

"That one's a Zubat," Yamper explained, "and the other was a Roggenrola. Zubat is a flying type, which is why I told you to use an electric attack."

Electric was good against flying, good to know. "You said I paralyzed it. What does that mean?"

"That was Thunderwave you used. It doesn't damage Pokémon, but it slows them down and makes them unable to attack sometimes. It's very useful to know!"

"Honestly," he laughed, "I didn't know that I could do that. Just how many moves can I use?"

"Four is the maximum. If you don't know what you can use, talk to Luxio when we get back; she's really smart, so I bet she'll know all about the moves that Pikachu can use!"

"The stairs!" Fennekin exclaimed. Truth be told, Ethan had forgot to check the room after the fight died down. Sure enough, the stairs were at the opposite end.

Dark Cavern

B5F

"Roggenrola in the corner," Ethan whispered to Fennekin as she stepped off the stairs next to him. "It looks like it's sleeping, so we should be able to sneak past it. There's only one hallway here, and it's not near it."

"Look off to the right!" she whispered back. "There's an item there! I'll go grab it while you check out the hallway!" Before he could respond, Fennekin began moving her way across the room, each footstep taken gingerly as to not awake the sleeping Pokémon.

"She's doing what a lot of explorers do," Yamper spoke after reading Ethan's face. "We want to make sure to get whatever useful items we can, but we understand that sticking together is best. We won't break off during a fight, or if you start leaving the room."

Fennekin practically skipped over to them, awkwardly holding a small glass bottle in one paw and bounding on the other three. "Check it out, an elixir!"

"Make sure to keep that! We're probably nearing the end of this dungeon, but like with apples, they're invaluable in bigger explorations!"

"An elixir?" Ethan echoed as Fennekin handed him the bottle. "What's that?"

"An elixir restores your strength," Fennekin smiled. "You can only use any one of your moves so often before you run out of power, and an elixir helps you restore a little bit of strength for all of your moves. Neat, huh?"

"My moves feel fine," he responded. "Will I know when I can't use them anymore, or should I be keeping track?"

"You can just kind of…" Ever so slightly, Fennekin bit her lip. "I don't know, sense it? Like, you learn to feel if you're running out of power. But a general rule is that the more powerful a move is, the less you can use it before you need to drink an elixir or take a rest outside of a dungeon. I'm sure with more experience, you'll get more used to feeling these sorts of things!"

"Hopefully we won't need it and can save it. You said we're almost near the end, Yamper?"

"I think so. Lampent said it wasn't very long, and Luxio wouldn't have wanted to send you on anything too hard for your first mission. I haven't actually been here before, so this is an adventure for all of us!"

Truthbetold, Ethan wasn't sure whether that made him more or less confident in the mission. Sure Yamper actually had no idea what they were getting themselves into, but something about that just made him feel...right. At least they were giving them a real mission to do and not just some pointless errand. Plus, he figured that he was going to have to get used to not knowing exactly what he was getting himself into; it sounded like a lot of exploring was like that.

"We're going to want to keep moving," Yamper said. "Staying in one place can help heal you a little faster if you're hurt, but it's more likely that Pokémon will come up, and the fighting might wake that Roggenrola up."

Ethan nodded, then entered the narrow hallway leading out of the room. Were these getting more and more narrow as they went down? He could still fit through them thankfully, but he really hoped that they wouldn't get attacked in such a tight space.

"Poochyena, right behind us!" Yamper yelled almost as soon as Ethan finished his thought. He managed to turn around, but Fennekin and Yamper still stood between him and the furry, gray Pokémon standing snout-to-snout with Yamper.

Ethan tried to jump forward in a Quick Attack, but stumbled on his feet after barely squirming past Fennekin and landed face-first in the dirt. "It's too far!" she yelled before firing an Ember towards it. "We can switch places if you want, but just one of us will be able to help him!"

She was right; there wasn't enough room for them to stand side by side, so he started rolling back to where he had been and used the momentum to jump to his feet. Once back up, he heard the crackling of electricity, but instead of it shooting out like Thundershock, it seemed to coalesce around his mouth and he lunged forward and bit down. Could he do anything like that? He'd have to ask Yamper later; now was not the time.

"Swap with me," he ordered Fennekin as the Poochyena retaliated against Yamper with a bite of its own. With just a small nod, she hugged one side of the wall and stepped back while Ethan hugged the other and moved to where she had been. The sound of more electricity announced another attack from Yamper, but when he went to bite the Poochyena, it jumped to the side and deftly avoided the attack. Almost without thinking, Ethan jumped out in another Quick Attack, this time slamming straight into the attacking Pokémon. With a pained whimper, it turned and ran, quickly disappearing into the darkness of the hallway.

"Nice job, you two!" Yamper exclaimed.

"How are you doing?" Fennekin asked. "It looked like you got attacked by that Poochyena."

Yamper's smile grew larger, then he waved his paw dismissively. "I'm fine, it was just one attack!"

"What type of move was that you used?" Ethan asked. "It looked powerful. Could you teach it to me?"

"It was Thunder Fang! I'm no good at teaching Pokémon how to use moves, but you could ask Luxio! She's really smart, and she's also an electric type so she might be able to!"

"I thought Pokémon couldn't teach moves to each other?" Fennekin asked to nobody in particular. "I thought the only way you were able to learn moves was by leveling up or using TMs."

"Luxio is a really great teacher! Even some Pokémon who aren't in the Academy come to her to learn moves, and some of them are ones she doesn't even know."

He looked at Fennekin, then the two of them both looked to Yamper. "How can you teach a move you don't know?"

"She's a really famous and powerful explorer, so she's seen all types of moves and all types of Pokémon. She's just super awesome! You'll have to ask her once we get back, I've never learned any moves from her so I don't know how it works."

"I wonder what kinds of moves she'd be able to teach me," Fennekin wondered aloud as she swapped places with Ethan and let him take the lead in the hallway again. "I've heard that Delphox can use all types of moves, but I'd have to evolve twice for that. Maybe there are some moves she can teach me now so I don't have to wait that long until I evolve twice!"

Evolution...that was something Pokémon did, right? He wasn't sure why he knew that, but it felt like he did. Maybe he learned it when he was a human? It seems like he hadn't forgotten absolutely everything he used to know, but he didn't even remember what he didn't remember. Better than nothing, he supposed, but not really anything he could do with that information.

"Ethan!" Fennekin yelled, snapping him out of his thoughts. "You just walked right past the stairs!"

"Really?" Looking back behind him, he saw that she was right; just a few steps behind him were the stairs, and there was nothing else in the room to even have warranted walking past the stairs for! "Sorry, I spaced out."

"It's okay," she laughed. "At least you didn't walk right into another Pokémon. Now come on, lead the way!"

Dark Cavern Pit

"This place looks a lot different than the rest of the dungeon," Fennekin noted as she looked around the large room they were in. Instead of the walls and floor being pure stone and dirt, it looked almost as if this place had been a building before. Smooth, uniform paving stones of varying colors, yellow near the walls and a pattern of light and dark gray in the center, covered the floor, and small rubble piles of white stone told that they lined the walls as well.

"This is so cool!" Yamper exclaimed, bounding from rubble heap to rubble heap. "I've never seen anything like this place!"

"Everything looks broken to me," Ethan said. What was so impressive about that?

Yamper rushed up to one of many mounds of cracked stone and dust, gently pawing a few rocks around. "Imagine what this place used to be! It looks like this must be some ancient city, but who built it? How long ago? Why was it abandoned? Even if there's no treasure, just being here is a great reward!"

Fennekin was intently studying some of the stones on the wall, so Ethan slowly walked towards Yamper while looking around on his own. Something about the place felt...familiar? That was the wrong word, but he couldn't think of a better one. He didn't think he had been here before, but it felt like he had been in places like it. Nothing in particular about the area seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't shake the feeling.

"What do you think these holes were?" Fennekin asked as he walked past her. In front of her, a few feet off the ground, was what he could only assume was once a rectangular hole in the stones. All of the stones had fallen down long ago, revealing a cave wall of hard-packed dirt much like the upper levels, but the opening seemed almost too straight to be random.

"Maybe Pokémon lived here," he guessed. "It looks like there could've been a door there, doesn't it? And with all of these stones here, this was probably a town."

"An underground city…" Fennekin trailed off, then squealed in excitement. "That would be so cool! I wonder why they left here?"

"This floor doesn't seem like a mystery dungeon, maybe they thought it was coming and they ran away to get somewhere safe?"

"I don't know, these ruins look ancient. From what I heard, mystery dungeons haven't been appearing for long enough to be the reason why whoever lived here left."

"Hey, I think I found it!" Yamper yelled from further down the stone street. "Come check this out!"

Ethan and Fennekin looked down the street, finding Yamper standing in front of what appeared to be a doorway leading to another room. Fennekin practically skipped in excitement, but Ethan walked and tried to get a good look at the rest of the road. Why did this place seem familiar? Maybe he lived nearby; that would explain why he woke up near Pokéopolis. Maybe he really had been here, just not for long.

"The map!" Fennekin beamed. He saw the two of them run into the room, so he walked faster to catch up. The cavern had caved in on the street only a few feet in, but what looked like a massive picture frame was hanging on the wall to the right with a small scrap of withering paper in it. "Do you think that's what we were sent here to find? It seems kind of small."

"You did say it was just a piece, right? Is this big enough to be the piece you're looking for?"

"They didn't say." Yamper walked up to the frame, then gently took the small piece of paper out and rolled it up. "You two ready to go?"

Fennekin's ears seemed to droop as she stared at the floor. "Do we have to? I'd love to go explore down here a little bit."

He seemed to think it over, then looked at the two and smiled. "We made good time, sure. I've never been down here either, so let's see what else we can find!"