Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Free N' Forth Chapter 18: Roundabout, a pokémon fanfic

Productivity in the guild was slow, while day-to-day life was slower. It had been three weeks into winter at that point. Compared to being only one month in the guild for Locke and Tamin, it was just what life had become for them; boring attrition in trying to find something to do.

At first, Tamin thought it sounded nice to not have to go out on missions. But after two days past, then three, then four, then six, then ten, her desire to go outside and just get something exhilarating done got exemplified further. Trying to avoid Yuki also made her need to keep her guard up for every hour of every day. Locke was much of the same, except he was eager to go out on a mission from the get-go.

Most days came and passed with hardly any memories being made. One exception to this was a day where a prank forged out of boredom occurred, where blast seeds met with bottles of alcohol led to a small explosion that completely wrecked one entrance to the basement; it got sealed off for repairs. But that was just an exception, and the rule was melancholy.

Mienfoo left to go off to her family, leaving Dewott alone. He tried to spend time with Locke, but Crystal made sure to keep him close to her and for him to give her his full attention. As for Tamin, she tried to pass the time by eavesdropping like usual, but found herself even getting bored with that. The first two weeks gave intriguing enough gossip, but that was a finite resource. For the third week Tamin simply gave up by grabbing random books the guild had to spend her time binge reading to carry her through the week.

Page after page, Tamin was sitting on a small chair on the second floor of the guild as she read deep into an adventure book, accompanied by the sounds of the occasional footsteps of passers by that her large ears passively picked up on. As she had gotten a quarter through it and was just getting immersed in the storytelling, that was when Tamin heard someone speak directly to her.

"Heh, you're actually reading that?" he asked.

Tamin lowered the book and glanced to her side to see that it was Venasaur who had spoken to her.

"Hmm?" Tamin asked. Confusion sounded in her voice, as although she had been punished for strange things before, reading was not one of them. "Yes?"

"Wow, that's such a nerdy thing to do," Venasaur snarked.

"I'm just doing whatever I can to pass the time," Tamin responded, annoyed, "Could you just go away?"

"Pfft, and THAT'S how you're passing the time, it's so, so stupid," Venasaur continued spouting off as he got closer to the minccino.

Tamin closed the book and showed the cover of it to him. "Real question, have you even read this book before?"

"Nah, I'm not going to stoop that low. I've got better things to do?"

"Oh, do you now?" Tamin said as she opened the book backup, returning to the page she was at.

"Yeah!" Venasaur said as he flicked his vines to slam the book back shut. "By like, a million times! Honestly, you might be better off just getting yourself knocked out and stunning yourself."

"Then if you have better things to do, why are you taking the time to say typical bullying things to me out of all things?" Tamin retorted.

Venasaur paused for a moment, then exploded. "Okay, that's it little miss 'I'm so smart', you're just a puny little rodent and need to shut up for once! What even have you accomplished in this guild? Nothing!"

He was gradually lurging closer to Tamin as he shouted, with her leaning away in order to try to keep her distance from him. During the tirade, he never made an effort to hit Tamin or prepare any sort of attack, he only posed himself as intimidating. But to Tamin's mind, she had a strong connection between people yelling at her and feeling pain.

Tamin dropped the book, slipped out from the chair, and ran under Venasaur's head to get away. She didn't attempt to argue any further, she didn't attempt to fight him, she only fled like her life depended. She had a flashback to moments of her parents yelling at her and hitting her, so she sought to do everything possible to prevent that situation from repeating.

"What the- hey- rodent, where are you going!" Venasaur shouted as he began to run after her.

No moment she had in the guild before had reminded her of her previous living conditions than that. She didn't listen, look back, or slow down. She took every turn she could as a method to try to shake off Venusaur, who couldn't turn nearly as easily due to his large size. But no matter how many turns she took, Vanasuar kept chasing her down.

Tamin reached the stairs and ran to the main floor, but only seconds after getting down, Venasaur came running after. Still taking as many turns as she could, she went for the other set of staircases and sprinted downstairs, the place she knew had by far the most potential to lose a pursuer in just as she had gotten lost there before. Venasaur continued following after the minccino down the hallway, but he stopped going after her down the second staircase. Instead, he simply stopped in front of the doorway, and waited at that spot. Even when Tamin got down to the lounge and reached the center of it, he continued to wait.

As for Tamin at the bottom, she waited at the center for a moment, panting after her sudden exertion, and staying vigilant for any sound that occured, any sound at all.

"Tamin? Are you okay?"

She turned her head to look around the room, and saw that Locke was sitting on one of the pieces of furniture. Alone, and with a very confused look on his face. His eye lashes were extended with black highlights, he hadn't gotten rid of that yet.

"Why were you running around like that just now?" Locke asked. "Playing some game with Scampi?"

"Uh, no. And I think I'm alright," Tamin said while beginning to ease her nerves. "Venusaur just chased me across the guildhouse, but it seems he stopped now on the top of the stairs now. Thanks for your concern."

"Oh dang, that guy?" Locke said, starting to understand more.

"Yeah, him," Tamin confirmed. "I just need a second to catch my breath."

"Do you plan to head out of this room?" Locke asked.

"Yeah, I'll just go up the other staircase. Venasaur's still guarding the one I came down, so I should be able to swing around to get to my own room," Tamin said as she got up on two legs again and began walking to the other staircase which was present.

"Um, sure?" Locke said.

"Yeah, might cause a short chase but I think I'll do fine," Tamin said while still going towards the steps.

As she confidently approached the staircase and looked up, she saw that the top few stairs and door had still been utterly destroyed. Wood was singed, splinters and glass shards were everywhere, and it was entirely blocked off by construction tape. Some wood boards and tools were also placed along the stairs below it to prepare for the repairing.

"Oh right, that's a thing. That's where those bottle rockets were lit off," Tamin thought to herself as she took a second to gaze upon the site. It was like the moment of destruction was completely frozen in time with gates of tape preventing it from being altered. Much like a painting, it looked like a spectacle that specifically set up with purpose. And much like a painting, it didn't appear as a place that could only be observed but not entered.

Tamin walked back to where Locke was and looked back at him.

"Well that's not going to work like I thought," Tamin informed him.

"Yeah, that's kinda what I was figuring," Locke said. "Well, if you ever wanted to practice your acrobatics, now would be the time. Take the path of pain, try not to get more than ten splinters."

"Okay is that a joke this time?" Tamin asked, noticing that something in Locke's tone just didn't quite sound right to her. "I mean these are the kinds of things you usually say, but this time it sounds like you actually want me to try going up there."

"Um, nevermind," Locke said.

"Mmmm, alright. Well Vanasaur is still watching one staircase and the other is rubble, so right now it seems like I'm stuck down here."

"Unfortunately, yeah," Locke said.

Figuring she had even less to do at that point, Tamin went over to the couch Locke sat on and hopped up onto it to sit beside him.

"Sorry to hear that," Locke said again. "I'd fight him myself if he was chasing you down and blocking that off right now, but I don't want to end up in more trouble then I already am in."

"Please don't," Tamin responded. "Say, what are you down here for? Most of the guild seems to be cooped up in their rooms right now."

"Explorin' the basement is the closest thing to an adventure I can have right now," Locke explained.

"Fair enough," the minccino said while shifting her place on the couch to go deeper into the corner and get more comfortable. "Are you not feeling well? You seem to be less energetic than usual."

"I'm just not feeling mood right now, sorry," Locke said. "Crystal told me to talk with Tamin less, so I should probably follow that," he thought to himself.

"Fair enough. Either way, one way up is destroyed and is getting guarded. So for the time being, you and I are just stuck down here alone…"

"Yep, seems to be that way…" the shinx replied.

"Actually, that's not quite the case," another voice in the basement said.

Locke and Tamin turned their heads to where the voice came from. A second later, they saw Hunter the zorua slyly strut into the lounge. "For starters, it's not just the two of you."

"H-Hunter?! How long have you been down here?!" Locke shouted at the zorua.

"About twenty minutes," Hunter said nonchalantly.

"And what are YOU down here for?" Locke asked, audibly accusatory.

"Hiding from Sylveon, learned about some good spots to use from the hide-n-seek game with Scampi," Hunter said.

"Oh, and you really think-... okay, that's actually a pretty good reason now that I think about it," Locke said, his voice calming down.

"Mhm. By the way, sorry for that staircase being destroyed," Hunter replied.

"Wait, was that your doing?" Tamin asked.

"I was a part of it, yeah," he said, still casual.

"What happened?" Tamin asked innocently.

"To sum things up, I learned three things on that day. First was that the staircases make for a good, mostly vertical expanse of empty space if you can't go outside. Second is that the guildhouse is made out of not so good wood and could really use some renovation. Third is that alcohol based bottle rockets are just a bad idea in general," Hunter said to them.

"Well this is just wonderful. Now not only are we trapped down here with all the staircases blocked off, but we're down here with you as well…"

"Nope," Hunter said, smiling to himself as he was prideful in his knowledge.

"What do you mean 'nope'?" Locke asked.

"What you said wasn't true, so that's why I said it."

"And what was wrong about what I said?" Locke said, sounding like he was done with Hunter's nonsense.

"Not all the staircases are blocked off, so we're not technically trapped down here," Hunter said, still having his information parsed around. "One might be destroyed and another blocked by Venusaur, but there are three staircases between the basement and the main floor."

"Wait a second, what?" Tamin asked while hopping down from the couch to go closer to him, "Is this another joke of yours? I don't go down here too often, but I do know this place's layout."

"Nah, I'm not joking. Espeon's bedroom is in the basement, located directly below the office. He's got a trapdoor behind the desk.

From what I understand, the office actually has a few locked drawers with some confidential information, he has it so he can transport it from places normal guild members aren't allowed to go to without ever having to go into the usual areas in the guildhouse.

But in our case, if you want to get to the main floor badly, we could sneak into his room and take that route."

"Wouldn't Espeon notice us if we did that?" Tamin asked.

"Nah, he's not at the guildhouse right now, he's off in town in some thick coats with Sebastien. I bet they're probably getting a pedicure together, I know that place is still active."

"Now are we sure this is the only place up?" Locke asked. "The basement is big. Like, really big. So maybe someone, sometime borrowed a way to the outside? Or we could try crossing the broken staircase."

"I've worked at this guild for four years, wandered this basement a hundred times, and I've never found something like that. Besides, would you even want to go outside in these temperatures?

As for the staircase, we aren't allowed to go there either since it's under construction. We're also bound to get splintered if we try going that way, and are probably more likely to be noticed if we go that way."

"So our choices really are to wait here for an indeterminate amount of time until something happens, or go through Espeon's room and the office to get to the main floor?" Tamin asked.

"If we're going to believe that zorua, then sure," Locke said, squinting in annoyance.

"Correct," Hunter confirmed. "I am merely bringing it up as a suggestion. I'm not going to take that path alone, so if you two are waiting here as well, I'll stay with you guys."

"I'm fine with waiting as well. It's not much different from what we normally do, and we have the bathrooms down here," Tamin said.

"Just as a heads up, I know Venusaur well enough that he'll probably wait for the meal bell for supper to ring as a way to force us up. So there's that," Hunter said. "Anyways, Locke, what's your call?"

The shinx looked between the minccino and the zorua, his head going between them as he contemplated what the best course of action was. "Well, I don't really want to help him out. But from the sounds of it, he's not going to do this alone, which means he'll just stay around here if I don't help him," he thought. After a few seconds based, his decision was made.

"Screw it, I'm not going to be stuck down here with you t- with Hunter. I'm going, come with me if you want."

"Alrighty then, you're decision. Espeon's bedroom is over there," Hunter said as he raised a paw to point at a room close to them. "I'll come with you. You might not like me, but you'll probably need my skills to get through. And Tamin, are you still going to wait?"

"Hmm. You know, I think I'll come along as well. The last two times I abandoned Locke was disastrous, first time for him and second time for me, so I think I'll just stick Locke so that another cat-tastrophy won't happen."

"Glad we've got a plan figured out then. Let's do this," Hunter said as he turned and began walking towards the bedroom.

"Have you done this before?" Tamin asked Hunter.

"I have not. I've made short incursions into his room before and noticed the staircase because of that, but I've never had a reason to take this roundabout route before," he responded. "Even still, I've got the skills that will help us. You're not nervous, are you?"

"Actually no, not this time," Tamin said as she lifted her paw up and looked down on it, wiggling the parts on it around. "I think I have what I need for this as well."

The three walked up to the bedroom's door together. The door was smaller than most in the guild and only had a single doorknob, perfectly proportioned for Epseon. It was one that swung open their way, but as Locke stepped up to make an attempt at pulling it open, he found it was locked and didn't move more than a few millimeters. This was unusual, as the sliding pin locks the guild usually used prevented the door from being pushed inwards, not pulled outwards.

"It's blocked off, any idea?" Locke asked while turning to Tamin and Hunter.

"Espeon has it kept shut with a wooden bolt above the door, he lifts it up using telekinesis so he can get through," Hunter explained as he pointed upwards.

All three of them looked up, where they saw precisely what he had described: a wooden stake was what blocked the door from being pulled open.

"Let me get it," Tamin said.

She walked back a bit in order to have some distance. The minccino ran on all fours to get a running start and when she got close enough to the other two, she leaped up to the door top.

The trickiest part was getting a grip and staying to the top of the door, but she managed to get both her paws on the stake holder. After that it was relatively easy to pull the stake upwards so that it no longer blocked the door from being opened.

Hunter pulled the door open as Tamin pulled the wood up. She briefly stood on top of the door as it was being pulled from under her, but after that she jumped down and let the pin fall again. The door was now open so that it could be seen.

It was an expansive bedroom, five meters by five meters large making it almost three times as large as the typical room guild members had. It was much better furnished as well, with colorful carpet all around the bottom of it and furniture that sectionized it. The piece of interest in the room was a spiral metal staircase that led up to a trapdoor in the ceiling.

"Let's not make more noise then we need to," Hunter quietly said to the group as they walked in.

Locke and Tamin nodded in agreement with Hunter as they delved into the room.

Hunter and Tamin began walking towards the staircase while Locke stayed back for a moment to shut the door behind them. But as the two were halfway across, Locke noticed the door was blocked from being shut.

"Guys, this door isn't going to close," Locke said across the room. Trying to keep his voice low to not be louder than what he needed to be.

Hunter and Tamin looked to see what was going on, finding that the same wooden stage that was originally intended to prevent the door from being opened had fallen back down and was now blocking the door from being closed.

"Right. Forgot about that," Hunter quietly whispered.

Tamin took a moment to think on what to do. "C'mon Tamin, you've been like a rogue before. There ought to be some way to fix this. You're awful if you can't think of a way to fix this." After a second of pondering and looking at the problem, she came up with an idea.

"If we find something long, like a wooden pole, I could push the pin back up into its socket while someone else pulls the door close," Tamin said, also whispering. "It will then fall back down on the outside of it."

"Good plan," Hunter whispered back, "I'll start looking for something."

"One second," Locke whispered as he stepped away from the partially open door, "I am going to make sure that we can open the trapdoor to Espeon's office before we go and trap ourselves in this room."

"You do that," Tamin responded.

Hunter and Tamin shifted their gaze away from the staircase while Locke scaled the staircase by himself. Now with their focus away, they both had ample opportunity to investigate the guildmaster's bedroom.

The first thing that Tamin's eyes had caught onto was a large, slightly worn ball of yarn in the room. At first she paid no mind to it, but then she looked around and saw no knitting items or things created out of yarn. Seeing what wasn't there caused Tamin to take another glance at the yarn with an uneasy expression as she visualized what the yarn's actual purpose was for,

She put the ball back down, and then glanced back to where Hunter was, seeing him scan through a shelf that certainly could not contain any pole or object fitting Tamin's description of what she needed.

The books in the room had different labels, but no consistent theme for it. One was labeled 'Apothecary 101', another was 'Stone continent atlases', and there were a few adventure stories named things such as 'Retribution' or 'Quenched Torch'. But those weren't in Hunter's interest. Instead, the one book he grabbed was the singular one that did not have a label. He then opened it and began flipping through pages to glance at them. He knew he didn't have the time to properly read it, but he still tried to get at least a sense of what the book was. After a few seconds of looking, a sly grin formed on his mouth. "Well, I was right. Espeon does keep a diary," he thought, "and it looks like most of his entries are even on Sebastien as well."

Hunter closed the book and inserted it back into the shelf, making it look like it hadn't been touched. While the zorua had been doing that, Locke had managed to get to the top of the spiral staircase and just under the trap door at the top. He put his paw up above his head to push against the wooden trapdoor.

To his delight, it pushed upwards and let light seep into the small opening. It temporarily hurt Locke's eyes to see the sudden light hit against him in the dark room, but they quickly adapted. He could recognize the walls of Espeon's office as he looked through it.

Locke lowered the trap door down gently, doing so with minimal noise. Although escape to the main floor was right in front of him, he didn't want to leave the others behind and wanted to make sure that they were able to clean up their traces with closing the door.

Locke turned around from where he was and looked around the room. He was still on the spiral staircase as it gave him an elevated position to see the whole room and the other two in it.

"The trapdoor isn't blocked," Locke told them, "Go and get it closed, we won't be trapped by it."

"Shhhhh…" Hunter sounded, trying to signal that Locke was talking too loudly.

Tamin continued to search the room for something they could use to move the stake, while Hunter seemed more keen to use this opportunity to snoop around the room.

Both of them came across several locked containers in the room, some having a keyhole and others a combination lock. Even though no one else was allowed to be in his room, Espeon seemed to make doubly sure that they were secured.

There was a safe below a portrait depicting a glaceon, flareon, and two eevees, but they both assumed it just contained money. But what was more curious to them was the other stuff. Things like small wooden boxes, unable to hold anything large and set on a desk.

One in particular caught Hunter's eye was the small box with the three digit pin. He stopped himself to see if you could open it, finding that it was currently locked with the incorrect code.

"If he didn't mess with all three of the numbers the last time he opened this, then I could brute-force this," Hunter thought while his head tilted to the side.

He placed one of his front paws below the lock, constantly exerting pressure to try and lift the top side up. He placed his other front paw on the numbers, constantly flipping through the last of the three digits in the code.

He flipped it from 672 to 673, then 674, 675, 676, 677 and then 678. Once he flipped the code to that number, he heard a small clicking sound and was able to get the box opened up. A quick whiff of pride came to him as he was able to peer into the contents.

It was a cushioned jewelry box that only contained three things; two identical rings and an untied knot. The rings themselves were clearly expensive; both having a gemstone that was two-thirds white and one-third blue for its color. The two colors being distinctly separate from each other instead of blended together, like a fancy marble.

After seeing what he could, Hunter closed the box back up and set the number back to 672 like how he had found it.

While Hunter was snooping around through Espeon's stuff that would not assist them, Locke examined a section of the room he randomly chose.

It was a small wooden bench that had caught his eyes, and what Locke went to check. The first thing he noticed on the table was a well-stocked and open medical kit, which had an unholy amount of bandages in and around it. Locke was confused on why he had these considering the fact that the infirmary wasn't far away. Making it further befuddling was the presence of various herbs, powders, mortar bowls, and complete medicines. He had a complete apothecary setup on that desk. But while it did have a wide assortment of items, none were poles like what Tamin described they needed.

"Has anyone found what we need yet?" Locke asked, trying to control his own volume.

"Nope," Hunter said.

"I'm still searching, but there ought to be something here we can use," Tamin responded.

"Are you even looking?" Locke asked Hunter.

"Just as much as you are," Hunter replied.

"Are you sure? Because earlier I saw you looking through books," Locke said.

"Just like I said: just as much as you are," the zorua said with a sly smile.

"You know, if we don't find anything we could just leave and close the door from the outside just like we opened it," Tamin suggested, "If we leave things how we found it then nothing bad will happen."

"Ah yes, classic case of 'live to fight another day'," Locke said. "In this circumstance it isn't avoiding death though. But then again, somehow being trapped with Hunter for an extended period of time is about as bad."

"Let's not give up now, we should keep searching at least a little longer. We can do that soon if we don't find anything soon. Although considering Locke's history of less than good luck, we could make the safe assumption that 'soon' will turn into 'never'," Hunter responded to Locke.

"Guys, let's not be making these jokes and focus on searching," Tamin said, getting uncomfortable.

"How many pokemon does it take to get caught trespassing and shamed for it? The answer's just one. But together we can do it three times as well," Locke said, seemingly ignoring what Tamin said even though he could hear it.

"Guys, enough," Tamin said again.

"I'm sure we're not the first pokemon to do this before. But in our case, that'll actually make it easier on us, since we just need to find the bones of the last pokemon who had the hubris to attempt this. Quick, has anyone found a closet yet?" Hunter said, adding onto the jokes.

"Please stop," Tamin said, getting more uncomfortable.

"Now that I think about it, I'm not sure why I was ever complaining that I'm trapped in the basement with you. It's a whole lot better than being trapped with just friends, because if hours turn to days and we start getting really hungry, then I can take out an enemy of mine to allow me to live on instead of resorting to a friend to do so," Locke joked.

"Locke, this isn't necessary," Tamin attempted to interject again, slightly raising her volume as she got more uncomfortable.

"I must say, you certainly are putting those illusions of your's to effective use. You're so tricky that you managed to trick yourself into thinking this was a good plan, and trick me into coming along," Locke continued on.

"ENOUGH," Tamin said, not necessarily shouting but raising her voice a bit and putting strong emphasis on it.

The two others looked at Tamin and had a moment of being perfectly silent. "Let's just find what we need to," she clarified, calmed down again.

"Sorry. But when this guy is going to try to challenge me at dark humor, I can't just let him win. This is my domain," Locke clarified to explain himself.

"You're not bad, kid. I'll give you that. But Tamin is correct, let's continue searching," Hunter said.

The three split up again, going to different places in the room.

Tamin went over to check a few objects in the corner that were all covered by a thick white sheet. The sheet was even large enough that they all could have hidden under it if they wanted to. She didn't throw the entire sheet off, choosing only to lift it up and peek at what was lying under.

The exact contents caught Tamin off guard. It seemed like nursery equipment, or at least what one would expect to see in a baby shower. Safety locks, mats, child fences, and even a baby bouncer were some of the things she could see under the cloth.

She turned her focus to the fence pieces, seeing them as segments that could connect to each other at the sides and were each about a meter long.

"These should work," Tamin thought to herself as she grabbed one of the segments with her paws.

It was heavier than she expected it to be, with distinct clangs that were created while she dragged it out indicating that they had metallic parts to them.

"Guys, I got something that'll work," Tamin said as she pulled one one of the fence segments out from under the sheet, "Come, help me with the door."

Tamin created more sound than she would have liked with the partly steel object, but that didn't stop her from getting to the door and the other two from joining her.

Hunter stuck his paw under the door while Tamin grabbed the edge of the fence segment to point it up towards the stake. The object was long and hard unwieldy, but Locke propped himself under the pole to help her lift it and aim it at the stake. She got it pushed up.

Once he saw the stake was pushed upwards, Hunter pulled the door towards him. Smoothly going under the pin and pushing the makeshift tool out.

The pin could be heard dropping down again. This time on the other side of the door and preventing it from being opened, just as it had been before they ever came.

"Alright," Locke whispered to them, "let's be going."

"One second. I'll need to put this back," Tamin said as she began going back to the corner with the covered baby equipment.

Hunter nodded in agreement with Locke and began walking towards the spiral staircase. Locke closely followed behind him as they both got on the staircase.

Once she made sure the fence segment was back where she left it, Tamin positioned the sheet back to how they were previously and headed after the two boys. Getting to the base of it when they were almost to the top.

Hunter waited a moment to make sure Tamin could catch up to the top. Once everyone was accounted for, he pushed the trap door open.

The light seeped into Espeon's abode from his office, and was particularly blinding to Hunter with his dark-type eyes, however he still had special awareness of everything in that room, so he could continue forward with his eyes closed. Locke pushed the trapdoor open, far past the test he had previously done. For a moment, even if brief, Locke felt like he was entering a mystery dungeon.

It was fully opened, and Locke walked up into the office, entering from the corner. As he stepped up, Tamin and then Hunter came shortly after, the shinx's tail accidentally hitting Tamin's face for a moment as they were packed together. But sure enough, they were all in the guildmaster office.

They didn't pay much attention to the room's layout. While they were seeing it from a new perspective, it was still something they had seen before. A desk was in front of them, a white curtain with some mass under it was in the other corner that was behind the desk, shelves were present as normal, and they didn't see any other pokemon in the room.

The three breathed a sigh of relief as they saw the door out. After all that happened, they didn't do anything except walk straight towards the way out, keeping their eyes on the goal they had been working towards.

But just as they began walking beside the office desk, the white curtain began shifting with whatever mass was under it not staying still. Tamin was the only one who sensed something was off, prompting her to stop for a second to look at it. But before any of them could properly react or get on the other side of the desk, four ribbon-like strands shot towards them, all coming from under the curtain. Tamin got a sense of panic as one wrapped around her tail, Locke extended his claws and attempted to dodge them, but lacked enough space to make evasive maneuvers and one grabbed onto his harness, and Hunter could only feel disappointment as two wrapped around his chest and neck.

With the ribbon-like objects grabbed onto all of them, they were all forcefully lifted up into the air. Sylveon tossed the white curtain off of him and looked at all three of them. Out of survival instinct Locke tried to slash at Sylveon to break free, but he quickly repositioned them to make him miss.

"Well well well, who all do we have here? Certainly none of them are Espeon," Sylveon said as he rotated all three of them to look at him. "Firstly, we have the zorua who just can't help himself in trying to find new ways to break the rules, despite knowing the disciplinary action ahead of him."

Hunter didn't say anything in response, only giving the expression of embarrassment back.

"Next we have the repeated offender shinx. Same one who complains about his harness yet seems dead set on trying to prove why he needs it," Sylveon said while looking at Locke.

"Hey!" Locke shouted back, still angry and looking for a way to get free from Sylveon.

"Lastly, we have the lone minccino. I'm honestly surprised to see you trespassing like this as thus far you've seemed totally docile. Then again, the influences you've been spending around does more to explain why you would attempt such a stunt," Sylveon said while looking at Tamin, who was still being held upside-down by her tail.

"I really didn't want to be a part of this, and I promise everything is alright," Tamin said while still upside-down, trying to take advantage of how Sylveon saw her as docile.

"All mischief makers who decided to be screwing around the guildmaster's bedroom, which you are explicitly not allowed to go into without permission," Sylveon said while bringing all three of them together.

"Just for the record, I wasn't trying to get you all caught and punished by tricking you and taking you down with me." Hunter spoke, talking to Locke and Tamin instead of Sylveon. "I genuinely was trying to get us all out of the basement unscathed. This really wasn't what I wasn't hoping would happen."

"Ah, so you're the leader of this mischief making party," Sylveon said to Hunter while lifting him closer, "Makes sense. You're a regular with defying the rules."

"Can you please put me down?..." Tamin said, getting progressively more uncomfortable being held by her tail, pulling her arms and legs back because of it.

"One minute," Sylveon answered, "I need to check what the punishment for this trespassing of yours is."

Locke pulled his claws back as he knew fighting would put him in more trouble, but still made minor squirming movements. Sylveon moved them all behind him, and walked a few steps to retrieve a somewhat book using his paws. Afterwards, he set the book down on the desk, opened it up, and began reading through its pages.

The book contained the guild's rules. It began as just a single page, but that page was followed up with addendums and new rules added later on in different handwriting. After a few pages, the book transitioned into being in Espeon's penmanship instead. Sylveon looked carefully for rules on trespassing, while Hunter tried to read the book as well, Locke was still squirming, and Tamin attempted to read but was unable to do so upside-down. After a minute of studying the rules once more, Sylveon spoke again.

"Alright. We're going to have to do some forensics on Espeon's room to make sure you did not break, steal, or dirty the room at all. But assuming that all you did was enter his room for a short amount of time then leave, then the only punishment you will have to face is a one hour grounding," Sylveon looked up from the book to say to them.

"Grounding?" Locke asked.

"It's the wording written down in the book," Sylveon clarified. "They just want you to be put into a single, small room for an hour without being able to leave. Confinement, like what Hunter was put into for forty-eight hours (just for not nearly as long)."

"Oh… so waiting in a room like this office?" Tamin asked.

"Well… yes, but we usually do an empty room in the basement," Sylveon answered.

"This room has a lock on its door, so we could just wait here," Tamin negotiated. "It'd be a lot more comfortable for me getting carried back downstairs like this…"

Hunter's eyes widened as he had a realization along with a plan. As a result, he played along as well.

"Y'know, it is said that the office is one of the most boring places in the world, and at the end of your life you'll never wish you spent more time in the office. So really, this is the perfect place since Espeon is gone anyways," Hunter argued. "Plus, do you really want to try dragging Locke all the way down there when he can shock you at any time?"

"Okay, what the heck? I'm not going to do that," Locke chimed in.

"Hmm… Let me think," Sylveon spoke.

While still carrying the three, he took a moment to look around the room, looking at all the different shelves, compartments, and drawers. For many of them, he used his paws to open them up and look inside, or test to see if they were locked. After going through them, he grabbed a silver key and spoke again.

"Well, I suppose this room will suffice, but don't make me regret this. You're not allowed to tamper with anything you're not meant to here, and if you do, your punishment will be extended," Sylveon said to all of them. "Now, can I trust to let you down again?"

"Don't worry," Hunter said.

"Yeah, will be good," Tamin timidly said.

"Yes!" Locke exclaimed.

"Glad there are no complications."

Sylveon set them all down on the ground. Once they all had their footing again, he pushed the desk so that it was covering the trapdoor, turned to walk out of the room, and locked it behind him with the silver key he had grabbed. Locke, Tamin, and Hunter were now alone again.

They stared at the door that had just been locked for a second, and then turned to one another again.

"Thank you very much for that, Tamin," Hunter said to the minccino. "I can promise that this office is a lot better of a place to be in than a room downstairs."

"You're welcome," Tamin explained while rubbing the base of her tail. "That was exceptionally uncomfortable."

"Well… up here or down there, we're still stuck together," Locke said. "It's like I'm stuck in some kind of purgatory, forced to have an existence that's boring for a long time. Then again, isn't purgatory a place to reflect on what you've done? I'm sure you could do well with a few years of that, Hunter."

"This is the ideal place to be since there are things to read, and it's not entirely blank," Hunter explained. "But if you fancy going mad because of a blank room over having to read, then sorry that you've been denied that."

"Let's not get into arguments over the hour we have to be here," Tamin interjected. "It's just an hour, you can wait that long."

"Yeah, I'd like it best if we just didn't talk during this time," Locke agreed.

"I agree as well," Hunter said. "Sylveon is probably heading down to check Espeon's room right now. But at that time, we're in here, the door is locked, the trapdoor is blocked, and the books are ready to be grabbed."

"Was this your plan?" Tamin asked him.

"No, but a little bit of improv will get you far," Hunter replied.

"And a lot of improv will only get you across two rooms, apparently," Locke commented.

"Cynicism is the bane of teamwork, but I don't think you were ever planning on working as a team with me," Hunter replied to Locke. "Anyways, we have plenty of time here and a couple things we can check out, so let's just get onto that."

The three had a quiet nod, and then split up. Hunter first turned and started heading to the desk to begin searching what was available on it, Locke still had the adventurous demeanor he had when going through Espeon's room and headed towards the door to begin looking for ways out, and Tamin remained in the middle of the room for a moment longer before she saw some curious shelves that were high up in the room, so she started climbing up to get to them.

The first thing Hunter did was to hop up onto the desk and begin grabbing at any paperwork he could to read. Having the opportunity to access all of the information and plenty of time to read it was a dream come true for him. Most of the papers were just missions that hadn't been accepted yet to be added to the questboard, things that weren't of much interest to Hunter. But the first thing that truly caught Hunter's eye was a paper that depicted the rankings in the guild. He picked it up, and it read as:

The report continued down for over a dozen entries, but lacked any information on Locke, Tamin, and Scampi on it. Hunter scanned down the entire report, studying it carefully, and then setting it down afterwards. He did enjoy the information, but knew he wanted something more.

Hunter looked down at the drawers on the desk he was on, seeing what would normally face away from any normal guild member who entered the room. Each of the drawers had a different label applied to them. His eyes wandered over the compartments labeled "New Missions", "Active Missions", "Completed Missions", and "Inventory". But when he noticed the one labeled "Confidential", he knew he had hit the jackpot.

The zorua reached down to try to push the handle to open it, but as expected, it was locked. An iron keyhole was embedded on the drawer's side, it felt taunting. Knowing that breaking in would likely get him immediately kicked out of the guild right there, Hunter got back up and turned to look up. As he did, he saw Tamin above him, on a high up shelf that could normally only be reached by Espeon's psychic or Sylveon's feelers, examining what contents were up there.

While Tamin was up there, out of the corner of her eye she noticed Hunter looking up at her from the desk. She moved her head to look at him more clearly, and as they made eye contact, Hunter performed a silent gesture to call for her to come towards him. The minccino noticed this, but was unsure what to immediately do. She remembered all the things he had done with Locke and even the time he had pranked her. Yet at the same time, she was filled with a great curiosity on what exactly he was intending, and couldn't help but scheme ways to get Hunter into punishable trouble. After pondering, she began climbing down and going towards Hunter, but with great precaution.

She climbed onto the desk with him, made sure there wasn't anything nearby he could somehow use, and joined him.

"What is it?" Tamin quietly inquired.

"Hey, there's something I have that I want to show you," Hunter said both quietly and affectionately.

"What is it?" Tamin asked back.

"Here," Hunter said as he went back to the side of the desk with the drawers.

Tamin tip-toed to follow Hunter, making carefully sure there was nothing that could create a mess- or even worse- lasting paw prints. After a few seconds she reached where Hunter was and saw what he saw.

"See all those drawers and papers?" Hunter asked.

"Yeah?" Tamin asked back.

"I know you like reading and folding, and there's an acre of those delights down there. Lot's of juicy information as well. Want to check it out with me?" he offered, speaking as someone does with a partner in crime.

"Isn't this stuff we're not supposed to be looking at?" Tamin asked, still keeping her voice down.

"Mostly stuff we're supposed to ask to see, and some semi-secret stuff too. I bet there's even stuff on what they think about Locke and you down there. But the really secret stuff, that's locked up."

"Locked up?"

"Yeah, in that," Hunter said while he pointed to the 'Confidential' drawer. "It'd be great if we could get into there, but we have to settle with what we have. This is why the office is so great though."

"Hmm…" Tamin sounded while she stared at the drawer.

"Are you alright?" Hunter asked.

Tamin's mind began calculating different options she had at her disposal and the likely outcomes those actions would have. While her desire to read what was offered was limited, she was also formulating the idea of getting Hunter into an incriminating position where he would be punished in, perhaps even getting him into a punishment similar to what happened with Locke. Once she had done a few seconds of theorycrafting, she knew what her next order of actions would be.

"Give me one second," Tamin said.

She turned to look at the top of the desk again for some items. After a moment of searching, she retrieved a letter opener knife and a single paper clip that was left on the office desk from when Niot was last there. She partially unfolded the paper clip and went back over to the edge of the desk.

"I'll give you something you'll love. But to do that, I need you to promise that you'll never tell others about what I am about to, and you'll go with the story that this was all you're doing. Befitting with how you're usually the mischief maker here," Tamin said. "Promise?"

Another sly grin appeared on the zorua's face, indicating he knew what was going on. "I promise sincerely," he said.

"And can I trust that isn't a lie?" Tamin asked.

"Tamin; yes. You can believe me."

Tamin has familiarity with bluffing, and with that she could deduce the zorua was being truthful; even though she knew he was good at deception. She nodded in agreement, and then began climbing down the side of the desk.

Supporting herself off of a lower shelf, Tamin stuck the blade and paper clip into the keyhole and began tapping on the different pins inside. She spent a few seconds at it, a few seconds in great suspense while the only sound was the noise of tapping on metallic objects as she adjusted the individual pins. But before stress could truly begin, a distinct and satisfying *click* ws heard. Tamin then rotated the knife to turn the keyhole with it, and pulled the drawer open.

"There," Tamin said to Hunter, "Remember: you were the one that did that."

Hunter was left stunned in amazement for one second, but once he shook it off, he responded with an "excellent job," pulled the drawer further open and hopped inside of it.

Tamin then bent the paper clip to look the most like the original state it was in as she could, tossed it in a trash bin, and put the letter opener back where she found it. She didn't put her paw on the drawer itself throughout the process, as she knew to avoid leaving any paw prints as evidence.

However, while Tamin and Hunter were off doing all of that, Locke was still near the office door and studying all edges of the room for any potential place to squeeze through. After careful examination, he concluded that there really were no ways out of the room besides the single door and the trapdoor. He even checked the ceiling for the possibility that there were three rooms on top of one another, but he had no luck in that regard.

Even though they could possibly move the desk back with their combined strength to access the trapdoor again, Locke knew that they couldn't then escape Espeon's bedroom due to the pin being on the outside of the door, save for the narrow chance that Espeon's bedroom also had a secret way in and out. As a result, he was limited to just the main door. That was all that was between him, and freedom with having access to the entire guildhouse. In turn, the only thing making that door be an obstacle was a small lock on it.

Locke focused on the door knob with the keyhole. After getting full focus on it, he began charging with electricity, letting it flow around his fur. As he knew he had time to kill, he took all the time he needed to prepare.

Once he was totally ready, Locke discharged a single, extremely thin, and focused bolt of lightning at the side of the doorknob. It instantly blasted the knob off, taking the lock with it. Once it broke from the door, there was no longer anything restricting him in the room.

But as the lightning was discharged and objects were broken, Tamin, Hunter, and surely others in the guildhouse heard it as well. The zorua and minccino immediately turned their heads towards the destruction, seeing what Locke had done.

"L-Locke, what are you doing?" Tamin nervously asked.

Locke didn't give a verbal response, he only made he bold stride to freedom as he easily opened the door and walked right out. Meanwhile, Hunter frantically got all the items from the drawer back in place, got out, and shut it as fast as he could.

Locke entered the questboard room, and began making his way towards his room. "Well, glad I managed to get out of that. All said and done, I've seen stronger restraints," Locke thought to himself. "Anyways, I'm finally out of that. Now I can just get back to my room and-"

As Locke reached the hallway and made the turn, he saw Sylveon standing right in front of him, with an expression that showed a conflux of confusion, surprise, and frustration. As they saw each other, they both froze.

"Yeah… this looks pretty bad, I'll admit. And if you're wondering why it looks bad- well… that's because it is."

Just as Locke finished saying that, he felt four feelers grab onto him simultaneously, and in different places. Just as Hunter finished getting back into position, he and Tamin heard angered stomping coming to the office door.

The next two minutes was one none of them wanted to remember. Sylveon forced Locke back into the room, and as the door was no longer able to contain all three of them, he laid down the law and resorted to far more direct methods of restraining, to which none could fight back without ending up with even deeper trouble.

By the time the two minutes were over, Tamin had zip ties holding her paws together and her tail zip tied to one of the legs on the desk, Locke's harness was well strapped to a second leg on the desk with a leash and the head of the leash was taped over, and Hunter was well wrapped up in rope until he couldn't move his arms or legs, only his head and tail peeking out from under the rope. None could reach another, none could free themselves, all three were restrained with a clear line of sight on the broken door with Sylveon standing in front of them.

"You are quite the fussy fighter, aren't you?" Sylveon asked while standing over them. "Oh well. I'm going to have to seek out Espeon to ask what will be the proper punishment for all three of you. But because of your actions, I would advise you would expect at least three hours in this room now. You put yourself in this hole, and this is what you get.

Goodbye now. I really hope you don't search for a way to make it worse from where you are."

Sylveon walked in the room. Once again, leaving Tamin, Locke, and Hunter alone. Restrained away from doing any physical movement, the first thing that happened in Sylveon's absence was that Hunter and Tamin turned to look at Locke with stern gazes, and Locke blushed in embarrassment.

"Thaaaaannnnnkkkkksss, Locke," Hunter said as sarcastically as he could.

"Sorry…" Locke said. "I really shouldn't have gone out there."

"No crap," Hunter said back. "We've gone from a museum of melancholy to a menagerie misery now."

"I'm sorry for that. But you're not exactly in the clear either, this was also your idea," Locke pointed out to Hunter.

"Well… yeah, I have to admit that," Hunter said, looking down at the carpet. "I'm sorry for this whole trip. I was the one who brought the idea up, and I've never actually gone through this roundabout route to the main floor before. It was always theoretical for me. In fact, part of the reason we went through this was because I was wanting to try it out. I just… didn't think Sylveon would be one step ahead here."

"Not to mention you're also part of the reason we couldn't use one of the normal two staircases," Locke pointed out.

"Apologies for that as well, that was also my bad," Hunter said, still sincere.

"Seriously, in what world are 'alcohol-based bottle rockets' a good-"

"I'd like to apologize as well," Tamin interjected. "While it might have not been my idea, I also didn't shoot it down and we could have easily backtracked out of it when we were in Espeon's room. I was also the one that led Venasaur to the stairs, which is the reason we chose to take this route in the first place. Oh, and I also spoke kind of loudly in the bedroom to get you two to stop telling jokes, and that might've been what Sylveon heard to catch us..."

Locke let out a deep sigh in response before he started speaking again. "Well, regardless of who's at fault, we are all peas in a pod right now. It'll probably stay that way for three hours."

"Mhm…" Tamin replied.

"You know- come to think of it- I think this is the first time you've been punished by the guild, Tamin," Hunter said.

"Huh… I guess you're right with that," Tamin replied.

"I was just thinking about how you're taking this exceptionally well for someone who hasn't gotten this happen to them before," Hunter said.

"It is what it is, everyone reacts to things a bit differently," Tamin said. The real reason was that she was used to punishments because of her parents, but she didn't want to allude to that. . "Anyways, anyone know some songs or games we could possibly do together? To pass the time and distract from us needing to go to the bathroom, since I think we'll be needing to do both once we start getting hours into this…"

The three leaned back, getting into the closest thing to a comfortable position they could enter in their binds, and began the long wait.

End of chapter 18