- About 12 years later... -

A quilava and nidorina found themselves trapped in a storm atop a mountain. The rumbling of rain pelted the earth and the sound of wind shifted through the leaves of the thick forest trees, muffling the sounds of their footsteps as they made haste to seek shelter. Eventually, they found an entrance to a small cave and dashed inside.

"Phew," began the quilava, shaking side to side to jostle the rain off of themselves, "I thought we'd never get out of that." The quilava kept shaking to get dry but was visibly annoyed. "Uggggh, my fur is completely soaked!" The quilava flared up the fire on their back to instantly evaporate the water on their back, but was still soaked everywhere else. "It's going to take a while to dry my belly though."

The two were part of a small mystery dungeon survey team, both donning identical plain green scarves and worn satchels.

The nidorina, seemingly ignoring the quilava's comments, made a cursory inspection of the cave, checking for any possible issues with this temporary hideout. She saw a small passage at the back wall where it seemed to go even deeper in.

"I think this is a suitable place to set up camp for the night," the nidorina began, "the cave seems to go a little deeper in, so I'm just going to scout real quick to make sure it's secure." The nidorina turned to the quilava. "Think you could set up a small fire here and set up camp while I check? You might be able to dry your belly better if you have another fire."

"Sure," muttered the quilava, still upset about being soaked, "just don't accidentally wander into a mystery dungeon or anything."

Taking that advice in mind, the nidorina carefully made her way deeper into the cave. It was a fairly straightforward path with no splits, though the nidorina was feeling a bit cramped amongst the close walls.

"Doesn't seem like any other pokémon live here" the nidorina thought to herself.

As she slowly treaded down the narrow rugged corridor of the cavern, the incessant pitter patter of the rain began to fade steadily into a distant rumble. The nidorina, at this point, thought of turning back since there wasn't anything particularly remarkable about this cave. Plus, going any deeper would probably be dangerous and increase their chances of running into a mystery dungeon. However, she noticed a faint light coming from around the corner, so she kept going a little further to see what it was.

The nidorina entered into a somewhat large open chamber of the cavern. There was a small opening in the ceiling where moonlight shined through and a bit of rain leaked in. "This chamber must be on the side of the mountain to have surface light come through like that," the nidorina thought to herself as she looked up. In the middle of the room, there was a circular pond surrounding a small island. On it, was a giant semi-transparent rainbow crystal that seemed to oscillate between different colors as the moonlight shone through it.

Initially ignoring the prominent-looking crystal, the nidorina followed her instincts and looked around the room a little more as she shifted her feet in place, feeling the soft dirt below. She noticed that a sort of micro-ecosystem formed in this cave; some small tufts of grass and flowers have grown around the pond. Their growth was likely aided by the hole in the ceiling and the soft dirt, allowing the plants access to sunlight and soft soil on top of access to the pond water, which would then be filled by little trickles of rain water falling from above.

Confident that there weren't any traps, the nidorina started walking to the pond's edge to get a closer look at the crystal. The watery gap between the nidorina and the statue was too far to jump or spend any effort swimming across, but at this distance, she could make out a shape inside the crystal. The moonlight shining through the crystal allowed her to make out the silhouette of a… scarf? At least that's what it seemed like to her. It was a sheet of some kind of fabric folded into the shape of a scarf, as if it should've already been wrapped around one's neck. The nidorina couldn't make out the pattern on the scarf though since the moonlight only let her see its silhouette.

After another quick look around the room, the nidorina became satisfied that this was the deepest part of the cavern, so she started to trek back through the cavern passage, back up to the cave entrance.

On the way back though, the nidorina couldn't help but wonder what that scarf in the crystal was about. But she shrugged the thought off. She could investigate it tomorrow with her partner when the sun rose again.