Shredder8 and FieryFrog666: Thank you! Here's chapter two!
Over the first week with the guild, all of our training was dedicated to safety and technical knowledge. For example: What do you do if someone's injured? Treat the wounds and return home immediately. If you get lost? Head east to the mountains, then south until you reach town. What if you reach unmapped territory? Map it, of course! What if you meet Barbarians? Make yourself unintimidating.
Herbalism was also an integral part of the training. How do you treat poisoning or nausea? A pecha berry. A burn? Rawst berry, applied to the burn. Hypothermia? Aspear berry. Cramps, spasms, or paralysis? Cheri berry. Headache, dizziness, or confusion? Persim berry. Pain, discomfort, weakness, or minor injury? Oran berry.
Before our first exploration mission, Osti took us to the supply storage and filled our packs with enough food and first aid to survive for five days. We also picked up an almost empty map and utensils to fill it with, all entrusted to me, and set off north.
We took the same path that Veria and I had walked the week before: some trees, some bare rock, and a clear view of the mountains. Osti opted to walk behind Veria and I to observe.
After five hours of travel, perhaps ten to fifteen kilometers, we reached the river beyond which was yet to be explored. The water was clear and shallow, flowing rapidly over its rocky bed, and it stretched about ten meters across. Looking to the left, I could see the outlet of the valley that the river flowed from. Finding this to be a good time and place to take a break, I plopped to the ground.
"Stopping already?" Osti asked, sitting as well. I shook off my pack and fished out a dark, slightly misshapen apple.
"Just for a few minutes." I took a bite. Despite its exterior, it was just as sweet as any other apple, and perhaps even juicier, too. I enjoyed my snack, then tossed the core towards the edge of the river; perhaps it would grow into a tree and provide a snack to explorers who may happen upon it. Having finished our break, Osti and I stood. I noticed that Veria was still standing, staring across the river.
"Are we swimming across?" she asked as I strolled up next to her. Surveying the surroundings, I couldn't find any alternatives.
"More like wading across. It shouldn't be too much trouble," I answered. With a heavy sigh, she stepped back, crouched low to the ground, and launched herself forward at full sprint. She bounced wildly through the water, splashing it in every direction, and finally came to a stop on the opposite bank. Osti and I followed suit, but not quite so frantically. We each shook the cold water from our pelt as best we could and moved on.
As we progress from that point, the terrain grew increasingly rough and rocky. After three or so hours, the ground dropped off into a shallow canyon. This canyon, however, boasted a glaring structural uniquity: carved into its floor were deep, unnaturally winding ruts and open caverns with impassable walls; this pattern stretched the length of the canyon, which I estimated to be only several hundred meters. I pulled my map and pen from the side of my pack, took the pen by the mouthpiece and marked our approximate location on the map.
"Dis isn't natural," Veria mentioned with certainty. "It was obviously built by pokémon."
"Yeah," I agreed. I looked back towards Osti. "Should we go down there?"
He stepped towards the ledge and peered down it, apparently deep in thought.
"Tempians have rarely been past the river, so this is definitely a Barbarian structure… If we do explore it, we need to be careful."
"What if we map de layout now since we can see it from above?" Veria suggested. Osti nodded.
"Yeah," I affirmed. I flipped the map to its blank side and began to trace neat lines and sloppy circles to represent the trenches and caverns. Looking down the edge of the cliff, a particular dilemma made itself apparent. "Wew uw we gunna entuw fwum?"
"Huh?" Veria and Osti asked simultaneously. Having finished the map, I spat out the pen.
"Where are we gonna enter this place from? And how are we gonna exit?" Osti pointed towards the opposite end of the canyon.
"Look close," he said. "There's no cliff on that end of the canyon—it ends flat on the ground. We should walk around to that end and enter from there."
He was right. After a fifteen minute walk, we found that the ravine was easily accessible from the northern side. The structure had a cave like entrance, but with an open ceiling. It was wide enough for each of us to walk side by side, yet Osti remained in the back as we entered. The inside was dry, dusty, and dimly illuminated.
We came upon the first cavern, which lied close enough to where I marked it on the map. That, however, was where the similarities ended.
"Weren't dere two, uh… hallways going souf from dis room?" I pulled out my map and laid it out on the ground. Indeed, there were supposed to be two pathways leading south from this cavern. Instead, there was one path leading east and one west.
"I guess I made a mistake…" I scribbled out the incorrect lines and placed two marks on the east and west side of the blob that represented this room, then placed the map bank in its place. "Okay. East or west?"
No one answered.
"West, then," I said, directing Veria and Osti to our right. This path only led west for several paces before bending south. Another room was visible at the end of this stretch, so we picked up our pace to reach it. This cavern was just as empty as the last, except for one glaring difference: a sandshrew lied in the far right corner, her eyes closed and breast rising and falling at a steady pace.
Osti stepped forth from behind us and motioned for us to back away. He crept forward, then nudged the sleeping pokémon into consciousness.
"Iz bes geraren eschleipten," she murmured in a high, young, almost inaudible voice. After a few more nudges, she lifted her head and barely cracked open her eyes. Seeing Osti, she jumped to her feet and slammed against the wall behind her, then scurried to the other end of the room. "Vor sein- Vor seined iher?"
Osti sat and assumed a casual posture, a universal display of passivity. "I don't quite understand."
Concluding that we posed no threat, the pokémon relaxed herself, but continued to breathe heavily. After eyeing each of us for a few moments, she fled down a southern path. Osti shrugged and rejoined us.
I whipped out the map and filled it accordingly. This planted a tinge of frustration in me—our new location did not exist on the original map. Furthermore, the ceiling was wide open; I definitely would have noticed and mapped this room from above. How did I miss it? Looking around the room, there were once again two exits, excluding the one we came from. One led south, which the sandshrew had taken moments ago, and the other was to the west. I marked them and stuffed it back in my pack.
"Which way do we go, Lux?" Osti's question caught me off guard. Was I suddenly the unofficial leader or something?
"Huh? Uh… South?"
"Is that a question or a statement?" I took the hint and thought more carefully about my answer. I began to think ahead: what would happen if I went west? What about south? Then it clicked.
"South," I confirmed.
"And why?" His agog told me that my answer was correct.
"Well… If that sandshrew is going to get help from other Barbarians or something… then it's better for us to face them now and leave an open escape path behind us. If we go west, they follow us and block our escape… Is that too farfetched?"
"Not at all!" he said, visibly gleeful. "That's exactly right. Now let's get going!"
He gestured for me to lead the way, then took a spot next to Veria. I led onward.
"By the way, Veria, if we see that pokémon again, would you speak to her instead?" Osti asked. "I think a… a female voice would be more appeasing… More comforting."
"Ah, sure!" she agreed.
"Cool."
At the end of this path, which was slightly longer than the last, was another room. In the center of the room, incidentally, was the sandshrew, looking indecisively among two eastern paths and a southern path.
"Hello," Veria greeted lightly. The pokémon panicked for a fraction of a second, but immediately steeled herself and turned to face us.
"Vans villes iher?" She spoke clearly, but her fear was evident. Veria sat, and queued for us to do the same.
"Vor villes iher?" Veria repeated. "What's dat mean?"
"Ahm… Sprighen zu Hauspraght?"
"I… don't know what you're saying." The sandshrew looked to the ground, then beyond the edge of the cavern wall and to the sky, dejected; dejection quickly turned to longing. Veria gently approached her. "Are you looking for a way out?"
"Ken zu din ausvi?" she mumbled, then shook her head in apparent frustration. "Iz veins… Zu nen versterghen kanne…"
"Come wif us," Veria said, gesturing towards Osti and I. With a reassuring smile and a bit of luck, Veria successfully conveyed her point across the language barrier; the sandshrew stood and looked to Veria with admiration. Veria led her to us. She still harbored caution towards Osti and I, but she shook it off. Veria hummed her satisfaction. "Good. Now, I'm not sure, but I assume she wants to get out of dis place. Should we go now?"
I nodded. "Yeah. The, uh… The map I drew beforehand doesn't match what I've been mapping from the inside at all, so let's get out of here, already."
I turned back the way we came and led on, and Veria continued to speak to the sandshrew. We exited the room and retraced our way to the entrance—perhaps to a premature end to our first adventure, but that was not to be so. One vital factor to this end was quite blatantly missing.
"Is… Is this the right room?" asked Osti.
I snatched my map out and pulled it open, then traced the path we took with my paw, landing right on the exit. I wasn't that bad at cartography, was I?
"We might have taken a wrong turn," commented Veria. I sure hoped that was the case.
Osti shook his head. "No… I'm sure this is the right room."
To my chagrin, I agreed. We had certainly made our way back correctly, but there was no exit to be found.
"Bes des dar orvet, vose den ausi zu einigetren sined?" Veria was piqued by the comment; she adopted an attentive smile. "Varn du schon einmal in einem verlits? Dar eingend vernischwardend. Dar ausgend beferdent siz an andarden unde des verlits."
Veria hummed her faux acknowledgement before putting her two cents in on the matter. "Ahm… well, since de entrance has somehow… vanished, should we explore de rest of dis place? Dere's got to be an exit somewhere."
Veria didn't seem quite as distressed about the predicament as we were—quite the optimist she was! In contrast, I was quite vexed: on top of the irritation of mismatching maps, it seemed that Arceus was bored enough to abandon his laissez-faire position and screw with us. Still cooling off from the frustration, I deferred the question to Osti. Osti, of course, pretended not to notice. With a brief sigh, I swept my agitation to the side for the time being and took up my tacit responsibility.
"Well…" I did a quick size-up of the rugged, sedimented walls… About three meters high with no pawholds to be found—no way we could simply climb it. Veria was right. "That's probably our only option: we explore and hope there's another exit. Let's get on with it, then!"
Veria gave a confident nod, and Osti shrugged. We decided to return to the farthest point we'd ventured to, and we continued from there.
x
We explored room after room and passage after passage in search of our salvation from this labyrinth. Occasionally, we would come across strange, dusty textiles and inexplicably fresh food items, all of which we indiscriminately stuffed into our baggage for later inspection. No exits yet, though.
After nearly an hour or so of wandering about, I had determined with fair certainty that we had almost covered the full area of the canyon. Contrary to the trend this adventure had followed thus far, I was correct! To an extent. The final room we came across, the southernmost chamber, hosted a new, unique feature; carved into the far wall was a steep and narrow, yet traversable path that instead of connecting to another room, led downwards into the ground.
"Dei treppes!" the sandshrew remarked a bit louder than her usual whisper.
"Treppes?" Veria repeated, observing the opening. "It looks like it goes underground…"
"Lux, is this the last room?" For the sixteenth time, I pulled my map and expertly flicked it open.
"Sure is!" Without bothering to mark the room, I returned the map to my side. "If there's an exit to this place, this is it!"
Osti strode up to it and, giving it a brief once-over, hummed his satisfaction. "Sounds good to me. Come on."
In unanimous agreement, we proceed. Just as it seemed from the outside, the passageway was dark and cramped, and descended at a steep slope. After several vertical meters of winds and hairpin turns, we came out the other end. Which was exactly where we began, so it seemed. It was the same impassable walls and open sky as before.
"What!" Osti ran to the center of the room, wildly surveying his surroundings, but I simply heaved a sigh of defeat. Veria simply seemed confused, but the sandshrew was rather unphased. "We're supposed to be… underground now, right?"
"Considering everything else that's wrong with this place, I'm not surprised," I commented. "Now we know something important: since there's probably not a normal exit here, we should be looking for… whatever that was we just came through."
"Hm… Yeah, you're right," he ceded.
"Now, let's find our way through this. Again." I pulled out the map and set it in the middle of the room for all to see. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no room left to begin a new map, and I had no extra paper to use. Neither did anyone else, as I was the only one to receive a map. "Hey, uh… we can fare without a map, right?"
"Yah," Veria affirmed.
"I don't see why not," said Osti.
"Good. Let's go."
x
Mapless, we rushed aimlessly through the corridors without sparing a second thought to our possible location. Eventually, we found our way down, and we repeated the process another two times. After the fourth time, the path led into a large clearing with one large exit at the opposite end. This exit led not into another room, but to the outside.
"Here we are!" I announced as we took the exit. The sandshrew began to blabber joyfully in her language.
"Daneske! Iz lepse dasse rechtrung, arbe… Kanne zu mist mier komeren?" Knowing her words wouldn't reach us, the Barbarian began to gesture eastwards with her full body and jerked her head towards us. Her message was obvious: follow. Naturally, we obliged—we headed east. Veria was quick to accompany the child, but Osti fell back to speak with me.
"Um… Lux. Have you noticed anything wrong?" said Osti, his voice harboring a hint of concern.
"Er… Not particularly."
"How long did we spend in the canyon?" he prompted.
"Probably a few hou…" looking to the sky, I found that the sun sat no closer to the horizon than it had before we entered the canyon. Though the evening should have been fast approaching, it was still mid-afternoon. "Uh… Let's add that to the list of things wrong with that place."
"Yeah," he scoffed. "This will be one heck of an adventure report to write…"
Over the next few hours, the sandshrew navigated expertly from landmark to landmark until we came upon a system of poorly built structures: a Barbarian village, of course. At this point, I began to wonder how someone with such a good sense of direction had gotten lost in such a place as that canyon. And why was she there in the first place? Was she exploring? I decided it wasn't important.
We drew closer to the perimeter of the village, inside of which a small group of its inhabitants began to gather to cautiously observe our approach. The sandshrew ran ahead to meet them, and we came to a stop with several meters between us and the villagers. After a short deliberation, most of them hurried inside their huts, leaving the sandshrew, a sandslash, and an old graveler to greet us. The sandslash, presumably the girl's mother, seemed to be concernedly questioning her daughter.
"Daneske, reiselendes. Dafre iz frogren: vor seined iher?"
"We speak Tempish," Osti quickly informed, eliciting a moment of hesitation from the graveler.
"Ah… Madagh," said he, gaining the sandslash's attention. He then gestured to the setting sun. "Ets vired zeimligh spält. Virset zu deiser reiselendes underpringren?"
"Yai, nar sezler!" she responded with haste.
"Gust. Brinsk sei im dar gästeschimmar ders langrehausers."
"Yai." She beckoned for us to follow and led us towards the center of the settlement. There stood a hut that was considerably larger than the rest; it was a disorderly reflection of the grand city hall of Tempa amongst the smaller businesses and homes that surrounded it. Contrary to the building's decrepit facade, the interior was a well lit and furnished dining hall in which a mass of Barbarians murmured in their foreign language over their meals. We caught plenty of scrupulous glances, of course. The sandshrew, who had been silently following, led us to a spot on the floor at the end of the line of dining pokémon while her mother hurried into another room. The pokémon next to me gave a welcoming nod.
"Gust aben," he said. "Iz habed genhörst, zu hats Werloren ausi den krerkern gereten!" Though he sounded perfectly amicable, I regretfully informed him of the language barrier between us. "Ah, werstaden…"
The sandslash stumbled from the room she had disappeared into with a bundle of cloth in her hands. She set the cloth neatly in front of us, revealing its edible contents, and sat next to her daughter. At the same time, I spotted the graveler hobbling his way towards the front of the hall, where he cleared his throat.
"Baghtond!" he boomed, his volume significantly surpassing his apparent age. Everyone fell silent and attentive. "Iz möghet aln danesken, dars sein Verloren ausi der krerkern gereten unt sigher nagh haus gebright habern!" His announcement was followed by a bout of cheers, but he squeezed in one more comment: "Sein nei spraghen kin Hauspraght, als bihandern sein angenessmen."
With that—with whatever he was saying—the night carried on. The food we were served wasn't dissimilar to a common Tempian meal by looks alone, but it was far different in every other aspect. For starters, the fruit was soft and warm, but not because it was rotten; it tasted even stronger and sweeter than normal. In fact, everything except the water was warm and flavorful—the entire meal was far superior to anything I had eaten before! I glanced to my teammates; Veria was having quite the same experience as I, but Osti was still inspecting and prodding his food. Understandably.
That night, we were provided with a decent place to rest. Our room was cozy and well decorated, but the beds crafted from some soft material wrapped in cloth, a rare luxury in Tempus. And it was the best bed I'd ever slept in.
x
The night passed quietly, and I awoke just before the sun rose, feeling well rested. Osti and Veria were still sound asleep in their beds, so I made my exit as silently as possible. Outside of the hut, the mist hung heavily in the air, almost smothering the bright orange hue of the horizon. I wasn't alone, though: a group of several men were gathered just outside of the hall we had dined in the night before, chattering. I kept my distance, and they seemed not to notice me. After a moment, the old graveler emerged from the hall and spoke a few words to them. As the group adjourned and the men shuffled off in their own directions, I caught the graveler's gaze. He lumbered over to me and issued what I assumed was a greeting. Knowing that he had no words to say that I would understand, he passed on along.
With nothing else to do, I ventured over to and into the dining hall. The atmosphere was far less energetic than it was last night, having no torches lit and, more importantly, no pokémon. The extravagant decor only intensified the place's gloomy air. Despite all this, a faint crackling sound emanating from a back room was enough to break the mood. In a short bout of investigation, I snuck towards the source and peeked through the curtained doorway. On the other side, I found the sandshrew's mother fiddling away with some stone contraption inside which a gentle flame burned. She removed several steaming fruits from the structure and placed them on a piece of cloth, similar to how they were carried at dinner. Perhaps she's preparing breakfast, I presumed. What was that thing with the fire inside of it, though? Is that what made the food last night so good? Burning it? As an inquisitive, young explorer, I simply had to find out. Not wanting to startle the sandslash, I casually walked up next to her, making a bit of noise.
"Hm? Ah. Gust margern." Success. I returned the greeting.
Wishing to waste no time, though, I nodded towards the Fire Holder Thing and asked "What's that?" with an exaggeratedly perplexed expression. She got the point.
"Ders? Ders bis en ofen." Understanding nothing, I held my blank stare. "Ofen," she simplified, gesturing to it.
"Oh, an ofen…" There was one large cavity in the ofen. The fire was burning at the bottom of the cavity, of course, and several fruits sat on a clay plate above it. So it wasn't being burnt, only heated; I hummed in the satisfaction of knowing how an ofen works.
x
I returned to our hut to find Veria stretching and yawning herself awake, though Osti was still sound asleep. As we waited for Osti to wake up, a young, female Barbarian voice sounded just outside of our quarters. The sandshrew entered the room holding a bundle of cloth wrapping, inside which were the very same fruits and berries that I had watched the sandslash prepare. I shook Osti awake—not without some difficulty—and we unabatedly accepted our breakfast.
x
Inevitably, our time in the Barbarian village grew short, and we took our leave around noon. Our trip back to Tempa took nearly eight hours, so the sun had set upon our arrival, leaving only starlight to light our path. The guild, like a welcoming beacon, was still well lit. Inside, merry voices and laughter could be heard from the dining room two floors down. The guildmaster's was not among them, though; firelight still flickered from under the door of his chamber. Osti cleared his throat and requested entry; sure enough, Ipsimus's voice granted it. The room's interior was lined with dancing shadows. In my opinion, it held a strangely comforting ambiance. Ipsimus was crouched at the far end of the room, peering over his shoulder at us.
"Laxamentum. You're back early." He put aside whatever he was working on and faced us. "How did everything go?"
"Uh… It's a strange story," Osti began. He told Ipsimus everything. He told of everything from our encounter with the sandshrew, to the disappearance of the exit, of the groundward paths that inexplicably led to the surface again, of the abandoned items we found scattered throughout the place, of our escape, and finally of the Barbarian village.
"That's enough." Early into the explanation, Ipsimus's face fell unwaveringly scrutinous. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking, but he didn't keep us waiting. "I'm not familiar with any Barbarian village to the northeast, but I know exactly what you're describing about the canyon… I'm quite familiar with it, in fact." I would have been surprised by this, but it made perfect sense. Ipsimus was the master of an exploration guild—out of what little charted area there was, he had probably explored all of it!
"Come, take a look here." He beaconed us over to one particularly messy corner of the room. "For the past two years, this has been my work."
The mess consisted mostly of papers with plots, graphs, and incomplete equations scrawled on them. Above it all was a map hung on the wall; there was a single mark in the mountains about a kilometer north of Tempa.
"I call it the Mysterious Dungeon. Ever since I discovered it, I've been working to discover and explain each and every one of its mysteries. But it seems that the Dungeon is not a unique occurrence." The braviary pulled the map off of the wall and set it in front of me, then dropped a pen on top of it. "Mark the location of this new Mysterious Dungeon, if you will."
Although it was outside of the map's charted area, I marked my best estimate. After a brief inspection, he hung the map again. "Now, then. Since you three have discovered—and experienced—a Mysterious Dungeon, I suppose it's only right that I teach you everything I know about it. Firstly, the layout of rooms and corridors changes each time you enter the Dungeon. Secondly, you must reach the end of the Dungeon in order to escape… otherwise… N-nevermind that. Thirdly, time functions strangely. Unfortunately, I have not collected enough experimental data to determine the exact nature of time in the Dungeon. That's about the extent of what I know, but do ask me whatever you feel is necessary."
I didn't hesitate to take up on his offer: "What happens if you try to escape a Dungeon without using the exit?"
"Oh, how curious," he sighed. "I guess I'll tell… I haven't the faintest clue why, but you find yourself in… a… well, it's as if the world outside is slightly faded. In this… place… pokémon, trees, and whatnot seem to be slowly fading in and out of existence all around, but otherwise go about their business. It's absolutely chaotic. As you wander farther from the Dungeon you escaped, you become more weightless, the air is less able to satisfy your lungs, and warmth and light and sound slowly fade away more and more. Had I ventured much farther than I did, I might not have made it back."
I tried my best to imagine these sensations, but I simply couldn't process them. The air had never failed me, and my body had always rested firmly on my legs. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to see this place for myself.
"Therefore, I need each of you to promise to never try to escape a Dungeon in any way apart from taking the proper exit." Oh… "Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now, about the Barbarian village. It's inhabitants were passive and hospitable, yes?" We nodded. "I see. Barbarians are usually rather territorial, but bringing that girl home, as you mentioned, must have changed their minds… Anyhow, we're just about to eat dinner. If anyone asks about the exploration, keep the Mysterious Dungeon a secret. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
x
Our exploration was, indeed, discussed extensively over dinner, excluding the Mysterious Dungeon. The stories about finding the sandshrew and the Barbarian village was nice and all, but the food we ate there was the main topic of interest. I considered revealing that I knew how such delicious food was prepared, but I decided that it would only be a tease given the circumstances.
Dinner drew to a close as bedtime approached, and everyone retired to their rooms. I wasn't tired, though. I wanted to do anything but listen to my own thoughts, but Veria wasn't up for conversation. The stars were always there to keep me company, though, remaining ever plastered to the heavens' ceiling; our unnamed creator's power manifest; a reminder of our Commission to prosper in a conflicted world. The comfort they provided was endless.
As the story goes: centuries ago, a band of conquerors from a long forgotten empire set off to the seas in search of new lands, vowing to never return until their mission was complete. They called themselves Tempians. They indeed discovered new lands, but never managed to conquer one of them. As decades passed, life on the seas began to take its toll, and culture and history was gradually lost in return for survival. Even the name of our creator was forgotten and replaced with "The Creator," and mere vestiges of the faith persisted. And that is the full extent of Tempus's recorded history up until its establishment on this land.
In both regards, the night sky was my favorite view. It has never failed to lull me to sleep.
Well, chapter one took two months to write, and this one took three months... Let's hope I can speed it up from now on!