Dice was finding it hard to keep up. Though he had eaten the oran berry, it wasn't enough to refill his energy, and Sashy still had the energy to tire out a Vigoroth and run a couple laps around the guild afterwards.

Of course, going through all the winding hallways wasn't helping at all. There were countless amounts of doors on each side of the hallways, probably leading to bedrooms and other things that weren't important to the tour. It didn't help with figuring out where he was in the building, though.

After a few minutes, Sashy stopped and turned around. He let go of Dice's hand and brought both his arms up. "Here we are! The mission room!"

The mission room didn't look like anything impressive compared to the other rooms. It was smaller than both the dining room and the training room, and the two things that really deserved your attention were two giant billboards hanging on the walls. All over the billboards were different types of papers. Some looked to be hand written, while others were printed out, probably on some printing press. Paper covered the entirety of the two billboards. You couldn't find a single spot that wasn't covered

In between each of the billboards, there was a small booth that didn't look like it had received proper maintenance. A Hoothoot who had obviously fallen asleep was in the booth, resting on the surface of the counter and he looked like he was enjoying his rest.

"This is the mission room," Sashy said. "This is where you can sign yourself up for a mission. They vary from one thing to another, like finding someone's lost item or saving a lost Pokemon. Those are all on the billboard to the left. On the right, though, that billboard is full of wanted posters. Evil criminals who need to be brought to justice. There are all kinds of criminals on this board."

"Let me see this," Dice muttered before walking to the billboard that was on the right and examining all of the posters. After about a minute of staring, he chuckled and poked at a poster that had a Jumpluff on it. "I think I met this guy in a bar once."

Sashy let out a laugh and nodded. "Well, considering you're a criminal, you may know some people."

Dice nodded and then looked around the room. He found a small passageway that led to what looked like another room and tilted his head slightly. Without asking Sashy, he walked down the passageway and into the room.

This room was actually bigger than the mission room, but it was completely different from the dining room and the training room. This room was filled with small structures, all having their own little decorations. Some had scrolls with writing on them that Dice didn't bother to read, some had all kinds of berries or even some gummis, and others had simple food items, like some sort of offering. All of the shrines, though, had some incense burning nearby. Maybe to get rid of the smell of rotten food that would surely fill the room every now and then, what with all this food that was left to rot.

"What's this place?" Dice asked as he looked back at the Maractus, who had followed him as soon as he noticed Dice was moving.

"Oh, uh, this is the worship room. I guess you could call it that." Sashy let out a chuckle and walked to the structure at the far left end of the room. A dark blue structure with red lines painted here and there and a small bowl of water being the centerpiece. "When some pokemon embark on missions, they give offerings to the god pokemon of their choice. They ask for luck or for guidance. This one here belongs to Kyogre. Mostly water types leave offerings for him."

Dice chuckled and shook his head. "God pokemon, huh?" Honestly, he never believed in the silly stories of gods being in the world. If there were gods, then wouldn't they show themselves to the world? Of course, some people were just too dumb to ask those kind of questions.

He understood why religion was so present in Dualsa, though. According to legend, Dualsa was either right above the distortion world, the home of Giratina, or was the place where the gods went to fight. You know, those like Palkia and Dialga, as well as Kyogre and Groudon. He still thought it was kind of absurd though. Despite this, Dice felt the need to question Sashy still. "So, you got a god you worship?"

"Oh, uh…" Sashy ran to the other side of the room, the far right, and gestured to the dark red shrine that had two burning torches in front of it, as well as a pile of dirt, along with some apples and seeds. A pile of dirt. Sounds like the perfect gift for an all powerful god. "Groudon. God of the land."

"It's because you're a cactus, isn't it?" Dice asked, holding back another chuckle. "Or because he provides desert? I mean, it makes sense. I'm not going to make fun of you."

"Uh, I guess that's a part of it, yeah." Sashy shook his head. "But it's more than that. Groudon is practically a savior. He lets the crops grow in the first place. Shaymin, goddess of flowers, helps sometimes, yes, but Groudon lets them grow and allows them to take root. If he gets angry, the whole world would have a famine. We'd have to resort to eating each other, and that'd be awful!"

Sashy felt the urge to mention that pokemon still eat each other, and it was actually a very common thing out in the wilderness, but he chose to remain silent for the kids sake. It was probably smart to just let the kid keep talking.

Sashy looked down the line at Kyogre's shrine and scratched the back of his head. "Well, that, and I don't like Kyogre. You heard the stories, right? Kyogre fights with Groudon to see who wins. Groudon wants to expand the land, and Kyogre wants to expand the oceans. If Kyogre gets what he wants...he'll flood the world. I can't live with all that water."

"Well, at least you have good reasons." Sneasel looked up and down the line of shrines, counting them all in his head. There were twenty in total, and some were more used than others. Some of them seemed like they were barely used at all, which was probably good considering the least used one out of the twenty was obviously Giratina.

Though Dice didn't know much at all about religion, and he didn't believe in any gods, he could immediately tell the dark grey altar belonged to Giratina due to the mirror that was hanging on the altar. It was believed that you could speak to the devil pokemon through a mirror if it's just the right time. Dice couldn't help but wonder how many pokemon had actually tried something as stupid as that.

"Uh...you have anyone you worship, Dice?" Sashy asked as the Sneasel turned to him. He seemed to be a bit uncomfortable talking about religion. Dice wasn't sure why, but he just shrugged it off.

"Can't say I really do," he said. "I mean...not someone that I worship every day or anything. Just...you know, no one that I put all of my belief in."

"Oh, yeah...that makes sense."

But it was a lie. Luckily Dice was good at lying, and Sashy seemed to be oblivious, or his lie might have been caught. The only reason why he lied was because people that didn't really believe in gods weren't necessarily well liked in the Pokemon community. He was sure Sashy wouldn't be rude about it or anything, but he wanted to avoid that sort of drama. He's actually lied about his religion many times before. He really wished people weren't so nosy about that sort of thing.

"You know, some people have been saying that the gods are getting angry," Sashy said, though Dice wasn't paying much attention to what was being spoken. "Well, I don't think they said angry, but they're not happy, that's for sure."

"Oh, really?" Dice said in an uncaring tone as he glanced at the shrines. He had to admit, some good work was put into making these things. This was definitely made to last. "Why do they think that? Some people have been talking to the gods or something?"

"Actually, uh...yeah." The cactus nodded. "Don't you read the paper? They were talking about it a couple of weeks ago, and they kept updating it for a couple of days."

"I don't read the paper very often," Dice said with a shrug. "I only ever read it to figure out what I'm going to steal. If there wasn't anything that looked really shiny in the paper, I didn't bother to read about it."

"Oh, well, they're talking about how priests of every cult have been unable to speak to their gods. It started with Groudon first, then it was Kyogre, Victini, and then Giratina, though not many people cared about that one. The gods don't usually just avoid their followers. They give them answers in one way or another, so this is really strange."

The cactus's eyes trailed towards the shrine of Groudon and he let out a small sigh, his ears drooping only slightly. "And I think that Groudon won't answer any prayers, either. That kind of makes me nervous, you know?"

"Yeah, that's a shame." Dice tried to make it sound like he cared at least a little bit, but he couldn't find it in him. He could care less about the gods. He didn't want to hear about the all mighty pokemon that may be fake for all he knew, and he definitely didn't want to worship them or try to speak to them. This might be news to Sashy, and it might make him disappointed, but it had no effect on Dice. He just didn't care.

Sashy hopped over to the Groudon shrine and frowned. Dice walked to the grass type's side to take a look at him. He seemed genuinely sad. It was almost enough to put a frown on Dice's face. Wow, this kid really believed in Groudon. Dice didn't care much about the gods, but for this kids sake, he was hoping that there'd be something good in the news about Groudon soon.

Though, in an instant, Sashy's frown turned into a smile. His ears shot up and he looked towards Dice, clapping his hands together as he looked at Dice with eyes full of energy. This kid definitely had problems controlling his emotions, or maybe he was just good at changing them on the spot. Either way...

"Hey, I got an idea!" the cactus pokemon exclaimed. "The tour's basically over. I don't think you need to see the infirmary, so we can get to the dining room! How about you try to find your way there? It'd help you get used to the building."

Dice frowned slightly but a few seconds later he just shrugged and nodded. "Yeah, sure. It gives us something to do until dinner." So they were going to the dining room, huh? He hasn't been there in a while. May take them a while to find it, but he was sure he could do it after a while.

Sashy nodded excitedly. "Great! Let's get going. We don't want to take too long, or we might just miss dinner."

The former thief nodded once more before turning around and walking out of the room. Right, what did he remember about this place? He tried to make a mental map, but quickly figured out he remembered nothing about the path they had took. He wasn't paying attention when his partner dragged him through the guild, so he had no idea where to go.

Sneasel looked at the two different paths to take in the mission room and, after only a few seconds of thinking, chose to go down the left path. "I think it's over here."

Sashy said nothing, but instead he held back a small giggle, which gave Dice a pretty good hint that he wasn't going the right way, so instead the Sneasel turned around and walked down the right path. "Or maybe this way. Come on. I'm sure we can make after a while."

Ugh, this was going to be harder than he thought…

By the time Dice had found his way through the passageways the guild possessed, which most of the time he had to ask Sashy for a hint, and made it to the dining room, dinner time had just begun, and Pokemon were beginning to flow into the dining room by the tens. The amount of noise wasn't nice on the ears.

"How many pokemon are there here?" Dice muttered to himself as he tried to find a spare place to sit at the table. Were there enough seats for everyone? It seemed almost impossible to seat that many people on one table. You'd think there'd be multiple tables here considering how many pokemon there were.

"I don't know, honestly," Sashy said as he looked around, that smile still on his face. He was so cheerful. Hopefully he wasn't like this everyday. Dice wouldn't be able to deal with this every single day. "Over a hundred, I know that much."

Dice nodded and soon afterwards he spied an open seat, right in the middle of the table. Dice quickly moved to the seat and sat down. Sashy picked the seat next to him and tapped his spiky hand against the table.

"Do you even need to eat?" Dice found himself asking after a few seconds of waiting. "You're a cactus after all, aren't you? And a grass type. Can't you just put your roots into the ground and gain energy like that?"

"Well, yeah, I can do that. Some of the grass types here do that. I know a Hoppip here that only eats by digging roots into the ground to save food for the others." Sashy chuckled and looked up from the wooden table, smiling at Dice. "But the food here is too delicious to pass up! Besides, I don't eat much. Normally just an apple. That feeds me for a week or so."

"A week? Jeez, kid, an apple can't even get me through a couple hours."

"Well, all of the cactus pokemon; Cacturnes, Cacneas and Maractuses can store food for later use. We don't need much to keep us fed or hydrated, so we store the rest of it."

"Wish I could do that." Dice chuckled and looked up and down the table. "When's the food getting here, huh? Been a long day, and I'm starving."

"Oh, guild master Magnus and Soara have to make a speech first," he said, his smile still present. "When there's a new team, they make an announcement so everyone knows, and they also talk about other events."

Just as Sashy finished his sentence, there was an incredibly loud buzz coming from the front of the table, the far right side, causing all of the conversations of the pokemon around them to cease. Dice looked at the front of the table and saw the two guild leaders sitting there. Dice had also noticed that sitting next to them were Lucca, the Lucario they had met in the training room, and Edison Sault, the Elekid assistant.

"Hey, listen up now!" Magnus had yelled out, and his voice was surprisingly loud. The old man certainly had a voice. "Now, we have a couple announcements to make, so don't interrupt and you get to eat faster."

"The first thing we must announce is that we have a new team that needs to be registered!" This was Soara speaking, and while she was quieter than Magnus, Dice could hear that other people were muttering to each other, probably either repeating what she was saying, or asking what she said in the first place. "Could the members of that team please stand up? I think everyone would like to know the new members."

Before Dice could respond, Sashy had hopped out of his seat and was rushing to the front of the table. As he ran, there was a sound resembling the shake of a maraca, though this was normal for Maractuses, so no one batted an eye. Dice watched Sashy run across the room and noticed that other Pokemon were...smiling at him. They must be happy for him. ...how many friends did Sashy have here? He was definitely social.

"Come on, Dice!" Sashy shouted. The cactus Pokemon had already reached the front of the table. Once he had shouted to his partner, he turned to the guild leaders and began to converse, though Dice was too far away to hear.

Dice sighed and stood up before walking towards Sashy, looking at the Pokemon sitting at the table as he did. Not nearly as many of them smiled at him. He did notice that a lone Seel was clapping. The guy was probably just trying to make him feel better, though.

The Sneasel joined Sashy at the front of the table and waved at everyone who was seated. There were so many people here...all looking at him. He wasn't used to this at all. He normally went around with people not looking at him. So many people in the same room...almost overwhelming in a way.

Once the two had gotten to her side of the table, Soara cleared her throat and spoke once more, everyone in the room quickly grew silent to listen to her.

"These are the two members of our newest adventure team! One you have already known for a long time, I'm sure. It is our very own Sashy the Maractus."

The pokemon closest to the front all clapped, and that slowly spread down to the far end of the table. The clapping was terribly loud, and it was enough to hurt Dice's sensitive ears. His ears had been trained to pick up small sounds. Noises this loud had always hurt.

Soara then grabbed a small badge that was on the table next to her. The badge was small, but it looked very well crafted, and seemed to be made of bronze. It was the shape of a shield with two swords crossed over it. On the shield it said Sashy's name, Pokemon species, and the name of the guild. Soara presented the badge to Sashy and he quickly grabbed it and put it on his sash that was around his neck.

"And Sashy's partner. The newest member to the guild, so we expect a big welcome for him. This is Dice the Sneasel."

Not nearly as many claps from the seated pokemon, but Lucca was definitely clapping, and Dice bet that the Seel from earlier was as well. He didn't expect much clapping for him. He was new, and he was a stranger. Why should they clap for him?

Soara then flew over to him, a black handkerchief in her hands. Before he could grab it, she flew behind her and tied the handkerchief around his head so it covered his mouth, similar to what a bandit would do. How clever.

The Butterfree then presented Dice with a badge, the same shape as Sashy's badge, and it had the same information as well; Dice's name, pokemon species, and name of the guild. He grabbed the badge, put it onto his handkerchief before pulling it down over his chin so his mouth was uncovered.

"Now, together, these two make our newest adventure team! Team, um…" Soara then turned towards the two and tilted her head. "What's your team name?"

While Dice just shrugged, Sashy bounced up and clapped his hands together. That was certainly his favorite way to get someone's attention. "Team Silent Tempo!"

Dice frowned and looked at the cactus pokemon. "Silent Tempo?" he asked with a tilted head. That name sounded sort of stupid, honestly, but he wasn't just going to say that.

"What, you're quiet aren't you?" the Maractus responded. "And I like music. I make maraca sounds when I move. So, it's a silent tempo."

Soara nodded and looked down the table once more. Dice decided not to argue. Sure, let the kid have his fun. Not like he cared. He just wanted to get this done with and sit back down. "Team Silent Tempo! Now, let's give them all a big round of applause, shall we?"

Her question was answered with much applause, and Dice was sure that it was mostly for Sashy and not him. He knew so many people here, and they were obviously very happy for him.

"You may go back to your seats now," Soara said as Dice saw that a few Pokemon, probably staff members, were walking around the table, handing out plates and even silverware for some that didn't have claws or sharp teeth, like Sentret and such.

Dice nodded and walked to his seat, Sashy rushing past him with a few excited jumps thrown into the mix, along with some maraca noises. This kid was crazy.

"My second announcement," the Butterfree said, and though the pokemon around him seemed disappointed that they wouldn't be able to eat yet, they listened anyways, "is just a warning. As you may have known, for those that have gone out of the city recently, the pokemon outside that choose to live in the forests and caves are getting more and more hostile to us dungeon crawlers. I ask you all to be careful if you are ever to go out on a mission. Remember, you are all important to the guild, and your loss will affect us, so don't do anything ridiculous."

"And don't forget the violent cults," Magnus quickly added. "Cult violence has been getting more common all over the region. You all need to be careful and watch out for these cults. If you see them, try to take them in. If you can't, well, don't be stupid. You gotta run. Like Soara said, you're all important parts of the guild. We don't want to lose you."

There was a few mutters going around the dinner table. Dice was able to pick up on some of the conversations as he walked by. Something about the wild pokemon around the city, how someone heard there was cult violence just north of the city, and other things about how it may be a bit more dangerous to go out now, but the talking died down as quickly as it started and everyone looked back towards the insects.

"And that's about it," the guild leader said with a chuckle. "Now, dig in, everyone. No use letting good food just sit there."

Dice sat down just as a Lampent came by and put his food down. He nodded to the pokemon and then looked at his food. A nice looking steak (this place served meat? He was almost surprised), along with some berries if he wanted to eat those instead. He took out his claws and cut a small section of the steak before popping it into his mouth.

The Sneasel smiled from the taste of the steak. It was actually...really good. Like the berry before, this steak was really delicious. Well cooked, and not even burnt, which is what he'd gotten used to after eating out in shady bars and restaurants. Food this good was very much welcomed. Judging by how friendly this place was, he actually thought they wouldn't serve meat. He was pleasantly surprised.

"Hey, who's the cook?" Dice asked as he glanced at Sashy, who was currently stuffing his face with an apple.

"Oh, it's a Kabutops," the cactus said, his mouth full of food. He chuckled and swallowed. "His name's Jurami, and he's gotta be one of the best cooks in the region! Though, I haven't tried food from many other cooks."

Dice nodded. "I'll have to talk to him later. Tell him he makes good food."

Sashy noded. "Yeah, all of the meat eaters love him. He usually focuses on meat, but he can make salad and stuff too. He made a great meal for me once when I was really hungry after a long day of work. He's a nice guy."

The Sneasel just gave a hum of acknowledgement and then went back to his food. He continued to eat his food until, eventually, much quicker than he though, actually, it was gone. He chuckled and looked at Sashy, who was now drinking a glass of water, chugging it down like his life depended on it.

"You thirsty?" the former thief asked.

"Hmm?" Sashy shook his head and put the glass down. "No, I'm just getting my fill of water. I'm not thirsty, but I have to drink more water so I can store some for later. I'm fine."

Dice nodded and then looked back at his plate. He took a quick look around the table to see what everyone else was doing. The dining room was filled with the sound of pokemon chatting with wide smiles on their faces as they stuffed themselves silly. Every once and awhile, some food would go flying across the table. At one point it got so bad that Magnus had to shout at them. Dice had to admit, he was surprised the Beedrill was loud enough to be heard over the crowd. It was pretty loud in there, after all.

Eventually, after about an hour or two, dinner had ended, and Dice had actually gotten into conversation with Sashy once more. He even got to talk to a pretty Krokorok that was sitting next to him. She seemed pretty nice, honestly, though didn't have much time for the flirts he peppered into their conversation.

"Guess we're off to bed," the Sneasel said as he stood up from the seat, waving to the Krokorok. He was pretty sure Caroli was her name. He wasn't paying much attention, but he'll definitely catch her name next time."Talk to you later?"

"Yeah, sure," the Krokorok said as she stood up. She then waved goodbye to the Sneasel. "Have fun tomorrow. Your first day on a team should be fun."

Dice nodded as Sashy suddenly grabbed his hand, causing the Sneasel to yelp from the sudden prick.

"We gotta go find my room," the Maractus said as he ran off, following the huge crowd of Pokemon that were flowing out of the dining room. Dice wasn't paying attention to where they were going, as he knew he would forget where they came from soon afterwards, and eventually they ended up in Sashy's room.

The room...wasn't anything special, honestly. There wasn't anything but a small desk in the corner of the room, which didn't even have a chair next to it. There were also two beds that were right in the middle. One of them...clearly looked slept in, while the other looked like it hadn't been touched in a long time.

"So, you sleep here?" the Sneasel asked as he approached the bed that hadn't been slept in. He grabbed the covers and brought them down just enough for him to sit on. "How long have you been sleeping on your own?"

"Uh...a really long time," the cactus muttered before shaking his head. "But now I got you! I won't be alone in this room! I have a partner."

Sashy hopped onto his bed and got himself comfortable with the one pillow on his bed, which had several holes in it, no doubt from Sashys spikes. "You know, not every Pokemon gets a room like this. Some Pokemon just can't sleep in a bed like this, like Ponytas. Those Pokemon either get stables or piles of hay. There's a different room for all types of Pokemon!"

"Right, that's nice." Dice got himself comfortable on his own bed and sighed. Man, this bed was actually pretty nice. Nice and soft...when had he gotten a resting place like this? Not in a long time. "Well, at least we get the good beds, right?"

"Yeah!" The cactus pokemon closed his eyes, ready to drift off into sleep. It was going to be difficult, after all the excitement of today, but he'd try. "Now get some sleep. We're going to have some fun tomorrow!"

Dice nodded. "Right, okay. Sure." The Sneasel, now laying on his left side, closed his eyes. He didn't have any problems falling asleep, unlike his partner. After all that happened, he was dying for a rest. It wasn't long until he drifted off to sleep.