Chapter 22: Clouds on the Horizon
After their impromptu rousing, Pleo, Nida, and Elty were escorted ahead of Seahive's Mairesse by a trio of Pokémon in the the local guards' sea-green scarves, clad in curious bluish-green plating. An accidental brush up against one of the guards by Pleo revealed the segments to feel similar in texture to his scarf, if noticeably firmer. Maranda explained it was something called 'armor', formed of many layers of cloth that had been tightly glued together that Pokémon wore on special occasions to protect important Pokémon and places on land.
… None of that seemed to bode well for this talk Maranda wanted to have with them.
Team Traveller's gruff-looking company consisted of the Galvantula and Seismitoad from the night before, now donning pieces of the local bluish-green armor that they apparently wore when tasked to watch over Maranda directly, along with a similarly-equipped Crustle whose movements evidenced that it had gotten a bit more sleep than its counterparts. The three lead the team along the marshy ground level of the mangroves, under the maze of passages between the huts in the treetops above.
Eventually, the three came to a winding set of covered stairs that coiled around a great tree trunk. There, the guards broke off to rest on the dock below, and the team was left to begin the climb up, Maranda following closely behind them. All the while, Pleo couldn't help but wonder uneasily…
"Are we in trouble?" he chirped, turning back to the Leavanny further down the steps.
"Hardly," Maranda buzzed back brusquely. "I just wanted a word with you, and felt we needed a better space to talk."
"Yeah, we're totally in trouble," Elty groaned. Not that there really seemed to be anywhere to go but up. The windows on the stairway were far too small for Pleo to slip through, let alone with him or the spike ball riding. Any escape would have to happen at the top of the stairs; however, if there was any trap waiting for them up there…
Well, the best they could do was hope that there would be some way to slip away from it.
When the three reached the top, however, they saw that their surroundings were much more innocuous than they had feared. They had entered a single large room with branches occasionally poking through here and there that smelled much like a clump of seaweed.
The place seemed to be some manner of workshop, with a collection of wooden and canvas contraptions, clay vessels, crates, and barrels strewn about. There was even a cast-iron cauldron filled with bubbling greenish-brown glop flecked with waxy-looking fragments floating on its surface, apparently the source of the seaweed smell.
Over by the tree trunk cutting through the center, some Pokémon were lighting fires to boil the contents of some clay jars. A little ways away, a pair of Electric-Types ran crackling currents through a trough filled with fluid, causing matter to settle along the bottom. Closer to the far walls of the hut, a few creatures in running wheels hitched to canvas conveyer belts helped move lumps of material along, a steady stream of paws shuffling objects from one part of the room to the next.
"Huh?" Pleo murmured curiously, tilting his head at the various strange objects strewn about. "What is this place?"
"This is a Gummi Fab," Nida answered, the Nidoran twitching her whiskers and sniffing at the air as she gawked around at the room and its curious implements. "Except I didn't know there were even fabs that were this big out there."
"It's actually not all that big," Maranda corrected as she flitted in past the entrance. "Even if it's a bit larger than normal for a settlement Seahive's size."
"Hrm?" Pleo asked. "How come?"
"Well, Seahive traditionally has helped the Pokémon that live in the seas of the Cradle make gummis," she explained, bidding the group to follow. "It's a practice that needs dry, calm land, and Boisocéan's mangroves provides a place those Pokémon can reach easier than most other islands."
The three looked back at the steps, and then at the workers and the machinery all about them. It didn't look like they were in any danger… Surely there would be no harm in following this Leavanny for a bit. Maranda gave a content chitter as she saw the group continue following her, and pointed out a window. A small, wooden, red-tiled hut with arched, shuttered entrances hung from the branch of a towering tree in the distance, the forms of Pokémon flitting and scampering about its fringes visible.
"The watchful gaze of our Protector's shrine also helps," Maranda added. "It is said that time passes more fruitfully for Pokémon who work with it in sight; that's why we hung it from the tallest tree in Seahive."
"So that's where ferals are given food then?" Pleo guessed, tilting his head quizzically.
"Oh no, we just leave offerings in the name of our Protector at the base of the shrine's tree," Maranda responded, flitting about a wooden barrel. "No sense making them go all the way up there to get food."
A strange custom, but it made sense, Pleo thought. There was just one other thing that bothered him here… If this was a Gummi Fab, then…
"Where are all the gummis?" he chirped, as he waddled on with his teammates past the barrels.
"Well," the bug answered, grabbing a small clay cup on one of the barrels and popping a lid off to dip the cup in the contents. "They generally start out looking something like this…"
Pleo flew onto the barrels to examine the cup. Inside of it was a white, crumbly substance with the texture of wet sand.
"Eh?" he asked, poking his beak into the cup. "It doesn't look like a gummi…"
But if this was a gummi, it couldn't hurt to try it out, could it? The young Lugia took a nip at the white substance inside the cup- but as it passed over his tongue, he gagged and spat the white substance onto the floor.
"Ptoo! Ptoo! Ack! It doesn't taste like one either!" he cried. "Cave rocks taste better than this!"
"That's because it's gummi mix. There's no flavoring added to it yet!" Elty admonished as he walked around the spit-covered glob, shaking his head with a disgusted frown. "The gummis are over there!"
Pleo and Nida turned their heads to follow a gesture from Elty's paw at a stiff, canvas belt on rollers being propelled by a Dedenne scampering along a running wheel. The belt deposited little green-colored beans into an empty crate at its end.
"Wait, it only makes one color of gummi?" Nida murmured. The fabs at home weren't anywhere near this size, but she was sure that they at least could produce more than a single color!
"And I thought that you made gummis for sea Pokémon. Don't they usually prefer blue gummis?" she continued. "The ones in Bluewhorl's harbor do…"
"Well that line does, yes. You might have noticed there's quite a few Bug-Types in this town; they have their preferences to cater to as well," the Leavanny replied. Nida spent a moment looking around; she saw another canvas belt further off that, sure enough, ferried blue gummis into a waiting crate. Beside it was another line that was littered with pink gummis. A confused Nida's attention was drawn back to Maranda after the leafy bug cleared her throat. "It's a matter of efficiency, really. Once you get to large enough scales, it becomes easier to make more of one thing than a little of everything."
"Do these gummis do anything special?" Elty wondered aloud, as the Growlithe kept a keen eye on the crate at the end of the line, watching gummi after gummi tumble into it. Nida flattened her ears and scowled, was Elty seriously thinking of trying to steal now?
"Just food, alas. It's said that if you allow the Distortion in a Mystery Dungeon to alter them, they'll allow Bug-Types in particular to develop skills faster, though."
So they were just normal gummis, Nida thought to herself. So what was with Elty and- was Pleo staring at the line too?
Grumble
Oh… right… They hadn't had breakfast. And the food looked so good…
"Can- Can we have some?" Pleo asked.
"I don't see the harm in it," Maranda replied, plucking three gummis off the line and depositing them in front of the group. As the team tore into them, they discovered that the little green candy-like lumps carried a somewhat dry taste with hints of Occa and Coba Berries coming through. A little blander than the ones the guild served at home, but not bad at all on a hungry stomach.
"As I was saying, I didn't bring you out here to only talk about food. I noticed that your friend-"
"Pleo!" the young Protector chirped in between a beakful of his gummi. "My name is Pleo!"
"Aherm, Pleo here seemed awfully young to be travelling," the leafy bug corrected herself. "Yet here you all are, a travelling team, accompanying a fledgling in the ranks of the Company. Surely it's a story worth asking about, isn't it?"
The team abruptly dropped their gummis onto the floor and stared back up at Maranda wide-eyed.
"E-Eh?!" Nida huffed back defensively. "Why on earth would Pleo be a part of the Company?!"
"Yeah!" Pleo squawked. "They're a bunch of mean Pokémon!"
"And it can't be a Company scarf!" Elty insisted. "Where's the purple square?"
But the Leavanny's expression didn't change at all. The creature drew closer and ran Pleo's scarf in between her leafy hands, inspecting it as she buzzed on.
"Well, your attempt at hiding it was certainly admirable," she explained. "But it takes a little more than some minor fire damage to disguise the weave of a Company scarf from me."
"Y-You can tell that?" Elty gulped, his ears starting to fold back.
"Seamstressing as a hobby since I was a grub, and having seen enough Company scarves in various states of disrepair to last a lifetime helps, yes," Maranda admonished, letting Pleo's scarf fall back to his breast as the little Protector grimaced and scooted back uneasily.
"Really, it begs the question…" the Leavanny murmured to herself, keeping a keen eye on the group as sinking expressions crept up over their faces. The Growlithe seemed particularly cagey, as if he was ready to turn and flee at the drop of a pin.
"If Pleo here isn't a part of the Company, why does he have a Company scarf?" she asked.
"Because they made me wear it!" Pleo squawked, beating his wings out adamantly. "They took me away from home and broke my old scarf!"
Before Nida or Elty could react, he dug into the bag that Nida had appropriated the night before and, after shuffling through its contents with his beak, dug out two pieces of a blue bandana with a white star in the center and set them on the ground.
"See!" he cried. "I'm supposed to be wearing scarves like Nida's and Elty's!"
There was a long, tense silence as the Bug-Type continued to stare at the group, unmoving. Pleo's teammates began to fidget nervously. This was the truth, so why was this Leavanny not saying anything back?
"Er… was he supposed to show that off?" Elty whispered to Nida nervously. Maranda suddenly scooted forward and stooped down to look at Pleo, still standing behind the pieces of his old scarf.
"I see… it seems the Company's willing to go quite a ways to make the Protector of Tromba one of their own."
"That's right!" he chirped. "They're-!"
Pleo then paused as he realized… Did… she just call him a 'Protector'?
"Eh…? How did you know I was a Protector?" he wondered, tilting his head puzzledly. "I didn't tell you yet!"
"Well, no one in town has seen a Pokémon like you. I got just a little suspicious after your incident with Margi the other day," the Leavanny replied, as she picked up the pieces of Pleo's scarf. "With everything else you've mentioned and the fact that you lot are allegedly from Tromba… everything seemed to point to that conclusion."
The three grew tense and their breaths shallow… So the Mairesse knew about Pleo, but what was she going to do to him?
"Anyways, as much of an honor as this is, I must confess that divining your identity was only a part of why I called you all here," she sighed. "It was to inform you that considering our island's current situation… it's probably best if you return home as soon as possible."
Some startled cries immediately went up from Pleo and his companions.
"H-Huh?!"
"What are you going on about?!" Nida interjected.
"Yeah, we've still got bandages from yesterday!" Elty barked.
"Perhaps it was a shock to put it that way," Maranda said, shaking her head. "But what I meant to say is… Protectors are best understood and known how to be cared for on their respective islands."
"How so?" Nida pressed.
"Well, think about it. No one here really knows any more about you than what you tell us. At your home, there's surely been records and lore about you and what you can do… All of our legends only focus on le Prince des Temps. Why, before today, all that the average resident knew about Tromba's Protector was that it was a silver-colored sea guardian," the Leavanny answered, as she began to trail off.
"And it is probably for the best that things stay that way… Things are not as placid as they seem in this town."
"What do you mean?" Pleo replied. The town was a little strange, yes… But it's not like there was anything wrong with it! … Was there?
"Boisocéan is a neutral space," Maranda replied. "Wedged in between the reach of the Company and the Imperials…"
"Imperials?" Nida wondered, tilting her head at the Leavanny.
"You have heard of Conntow and their late King, yes? The Imperials are his heirs… of a sort, which puts them at odds with the Company," the Mairesse explained. "Both sides would love to own Boisocéan, but neither can afford the other controlling it. Annexation would lead to certain war, and the bands of ocean Pokémon that depend on our gummis would have reason to attack both sides for disturbing such an important island to them."
"Er… what does any of that mean?" Pleo asked.
"It means that neither side can take this island for themselves," Nida explained. "But why is that bad? You won't have anyone like Lyn coming to bully you!"
A long, uncomfortable silence followed… Eh? This was a good thing, wasn't it?
"It also means that they don't have anyone else to hide behind when trouble comes," Elty spoke up, shaking his head. "Not that Company or Imperial help really makes that much of a difference."
"It makes a bigger difference than you assume, Caninos," she sighed, pointing at some charred patches of bark on a branch cutting through the fab and some patched pockmarks in the wall and shutters where small objects had punched through them in the past.
"The charred portions were from a pirate raid last year," the Bug-Type explained. Elty stiffened up for a moment at Maranda's words, but drifted back at ease as she moved a hand over to the dents and began to speak again. "The rest is from stray cannon fire during a dispute between a Company and an Imperial ship a few months afterwards. I can't speak for what your home is like, but surely the enemy that you know is easier to prepare for than the one that you don't."
Nida blinked and put a paw to her mouth. She hadn't even considered that there'd be islands where the Company wasn't around to bully them… Or that those islands would have headaches of their own to deal with. Maybe Maranda had a point. Hatteras and the others at least had some idea of how to take care of Pleo and of how to try and keep him safe there…
"I guess that makes sense," she murmured.
"Until you know it is safe to return, you're welcome to stay here. Tromba isn't that far from our island, and it shouldn't be that difficult to get word back from them," Maranda replied. "But… while you are here, being mum about Pleo's nature is to your advantage, and I expect you to act the part."
"Eh?" Nida asked. "What do we need to do?"
"Well, let me answer your question with a question, Nidoran," the Leavanny buzzed back as she continued on through the fab. "What would a visiting team in Bluewhorl be expected to do for food and shelter while they were there?"
"Um… Well, the town maintains some places with mats spread for them to stay if they don't have any money to buy lodging," Nida mulled as she followed after the Bug-Type, her teammates in tow. "And the guild gives visiting Rescue Teams access to their dorms and dining hall after doing at least one mission for the guild…"
"That is essentially how it works here as well," Maranda said. The bug came to rest in front of some doors that opened out to the walkways in the treetops' maze, letting stray rays of sunlight in.
"I think that I've shown you enough of this Gummi Fab, and I have other duties to return to. You are presently slated to leave medical observation after tonight, and I'll see to it that Pleo's scarf gets repaired so he can go around in something a touch more presentable tomorrow," the Mairesse responded, gesturing at the door. "Our town's Post Office is along the river not too far from the docks, you might want to make a point of sending off a letter from there. In the interim, you should also take some time to get to know the town and decide what you want to do here until you get word back about the current situation on Tromba."
"Right!" Nida cried, as she pushed the door open to the busy walkways outside, before she turned back. "And… er… thank you."
"It was a pleasure," the Bug-Type replied, as the team filed through the door. It would take time for word to get home and back, they'd need some way to handle food and shelter until then.
As in Mystery Dungeons, finding one's way around a new town also involved an exploratory bent and a good sense of direction. With the absence of the Distortion's effects and moody, territorial ferals, one would have assumed that finding one's way about a town would be fairly straightforward. And here the group was, having more trouble finding a Post Office than stairs in the Mystery Dungeon back home!
Seahive in many ways was a town that favored Pokémon that relied on water and air to move about. Sea Pokémon had the brackish waterways among the mangrove forest's roots to use to swim from one end to the other, whereas flying Pokémon like Pleo could just flit from treetop to treetop as they pleased (even if he decided to spend a good chunk of his time that day bobbing along in the water). As for Nida and Elty, they were left to grapple with the narrow walkways that crisscrossed Seahive. They were fine when there weren't too many Pokémon on them, but passing Pokémon became much more arduous without the wider patches of solid ground Bluewhorl's paths had, and time and again, the pair would fall behind Pleo to a chirping "Huh? What's taking so long?"
The initial thought had been to check the area around the docks and work their way back up along the river. After all, Maranda said herself that the Post Office was along it, and not too far from the docks. They had passed a box buster's shop with wood from splintered exposure chests heaped up behind the counter. The outlet's duo of Murkrow owners chattered among themselves about hiring an additional helper, la Mairesse was getting tired of them dropping the crates into passages for passerbys to bust by trodding underfoot. Further down was a small hut with a Delibird at the counter cheerily advertising places to store extra items, taking special care to point out the extra free spaces for higher-ranked members of the local guild. There was even a Day Care full of raucous children run by a Drapion who shuttled around her charges (a few of them seemingly little Skorupi of her own) on her back!
"Is it really this hard to find where the mail goes out?" Nida growled, the Nidoran giving her barbs a frustrated ruffle.
And yet, they still hadn't found the Post Office they were looking for.
"To be fair, this place is a maze," Elty grumbled, shaking his head as Pleo fluttered up from the river below onto a nearby awning to stop and preen his feathers. "It's not like you can just get up high and spot the post office around here with all the tree branches in the way."
"Hrm… maybe we need to ask-" Pleo murmured to himself, only to suddenly whirl about, the corner of his eye having caught sight of something strange. "Look! Look!"
The young Lugia gestured wildly at a wooden hut nestled among the branches of a tree across a walkway. It was painted vivid green and styled after a Kecleon's head. At the counter, there was a dozing Spinarak dangling from a silk thread from the awning, and a bored-looking green chameleon picking at his claws.
Pleo's heart leapt. A Kecleon in a shop? That had to be…
"Calino! Calino!" he shouted, as he suddenly took wing and flew over towards the nearby hut. Elty furrowed his brow and muttered something under his breath as Nida waved after Pleo.
"Pleo, wait!" she cried. But it was no use, the little Protector had already flown off and swooped down in front of the shop. The two darted off down the walkway after Pleo as he giddily blabbered on and on about "Yay! You can help us send our letter out!" before he stopped and realized.
"Er… wait. What are you doing here?" he asked, tilting his head. "And who's the other Pokémon?"
"'Calino'?" the spider yawned. The Bug-Type stretched his legs and shook itself awake before turning his head to the Kecleon with drowsy eyes. "What's he going on about, Bader?"
"Here I thought I wouldn't have to hear about that big-mouth again after he got demoted to Tromba," the chameleon sighed. The creature's scales flushed an ochre color and put a claw to his face before pulling it away, shifting his scales back to their business-like green, and turning to address this most peculiar customer. "Er, I think that you have me mistaken for a colleague of mine. I'm 'Bader', not 'Calino'. The Mimigal is my associate, Alphonse."
Pleo's head and wings drooped a little. He had been so happy that he'd found someone from home who could help them out with their current troubles finding their way about town… but this Kecleon was just a stranger!
"Huh…? But-"
The sounds of Nida and Elty's footfalls against the wooden walkways interrupted Pleo. He looked back to see the two panting to catch their breath, curiously Nida seemed to also look surprised. She shook her head, twitched her whiskers, and then tilted her head at the strange shop.
"Wait a minute, Seahive also has a shop run by a Kecleon?" she murmured. The discovery was strange, yet comforting to the young Nidoran. The shops' design was even kinda like Calino's old tent had before it got burned down when she was younger!
"You didn't know?" Elty scoffed, shaking his head. "There's an entire trading outfit here in the Cradle run by a family of Kecleon. They've got a shop on just about every island with a town on it!"
"Well, we do aim to please where we can," Alphonse cheered. "Can we help you out with something?"
The spider's amity helped to dispel some of Pleo's disappointment, and after peering towards the back of the shop, he noticed that all along the back wall were gaily-colored displays of seeds, orbs, scarves, and all manner of bric-a-brac.
"Nida! Nida!" he chirped insistently, turning to the Nidoran beside him. "Let's buy something here!"
"Eh?!" she cried, flattening out her ears. "But we don't have any money!"
… Right. Kiran always handled the team's money at home, and the satchel slung over Nida's back only had stationery and charcoal in it before they snuck aboard Lyn's ship. Meaning the three of them didn't have a single Poké to their names right now-
"Well, if you do have something to sell, I could always give you Poké for that and you could buy something with it," the Kecleon interrupted, clearing its throat. "The Merchantry's always been a fan of commerce sans frontières, so no harm in circulating our own money to help travelling Pokémon like you dodge exchange rates, eh?"
The three looked at each other uneasily. Elty had an unimpressed look washed over his face, clearly he didn't think this was a good idea. It wasn't hard to understand why. Orbs were harder to find than most other items in Mystery Dungeons, but they were out of everything else in the bag…
It wouldn't hurt to sell one of the orbs, would it? And they could use the money they made to buy berries and seeds for any jobs they did in the local Mystery Dungeon while here in Boisocéan.
"I guess an appraisal wouldn't hurt at least," Nida said, as she slung the satchel off her back and pushed it up onto the shop counter. The Kecleon straightened the satchel and opened its mouth, taking a cautious peek inside.
"Aha. An orb haul!" he cried, as the reptile's scales started to turn a rosy pink at his spikes. "Give me a sec to look them over."
One by one the chameleon took the orbs from the satchel and pored them over. He inspected their appearance, the way they reflected light, and gave little taps with his claw to their surface. It was all a most amusing routine to Pleo, when he chanced to notice that at the end of the counter was a glinting, metal object.
"Eh? What's that coin there?" he asked, gesturing at the little bauble further down the counter. "It doesn't look like any Poké I've seen before."
"Oh, that?" Elty replied. "That's not Poké. It's a Copper Bezant. You can tell just from the color."
"Copper… Bezant?"
"It's a coin that was used back when the Imperials called the shots all around our patch of the Cradle," Bader answered as he inspected a Sunny Orb.
The Kecleon lifted up the dark sphere and held it up against the glint of the sun. All the while, he kept a keen eye on the orb's light inside, which smoldered much like a faint fire in the oven at Gwenith's bakery.
"Shopkeepers sometimes still use them out on their bigger islands like Giotto, but what with things getting divided up between them, the Company and Pokémon needing to move around… When you don't have to worry about switching over from Bezants to the Company's Tin Thalers, it makes Poké much more useful for travellers like you in small towns like this one, eh?"
"But if you don't take these Bezants here, why keep it around?" Nida wondered, tilting her head.
"Counterfeit checking!" Alphonse interjected.
"Wait, counterfeit checking?" Elty said, rearing up on his hind legs to sniff at the copper coin. Was this all just a bluff? Bader just told them he didn't even accept the coins in the first place, so why would he even need it? "How does that help things?"
"Like so!" the Spinarak insisted. The Pokémon ducked under the counter and fished out a thin silvery disc and two misshapen, golden coins with grooves cut into them to form runes. He slid the two golden coins in between the copper piece and the silver one, then turned towards the three Pokémon.
"Take a guess," he challenged. "Which of the two coins in between the Bezant and the aluminum disc is the real one?"
Nida and Elty stared blankly at the two coins. They didn't look exactly the same, but no two ever did! Coins always had some slightly misshapen features here and there, unique defects formed during pressing while they were still molten lumps. But there wasn't anything that seemed that different between the two! They both had the same runes on them, they both had the same color…
"Er… is this a trick question?" Elty muttered, lowering his ears. "I mean, as far as I know, odor isn't a part of what makes Poké real or not, so-"
Before Elty could continue on, he was cut off by the sound of an excited squawk.
"The one on the left is real!" Pleo cried out.
"Heh heh, good eye!" Alphonse cheered. "That's indeed the real coin."
Nida and Elty's jaws dropped. Pleo picked out the real coin without even thinking about it! Did he guess? He seemed far too confident in his answer. The Growlithe in particular seemed genuinely interested, as he nudged Pleo repeatedly on his wing.
"Wait, what?" he whispered. "Pleo, how on earth can you tell?"
There was a long, awkward silence. Pleo looked over at the coins and pointed at them, as if the answer was right there staring them all in the face. He tilted his head at the two quizzically, confused why this seemed to be so puzzling to them.
"Huh? You can't see it?" he asked. "The one on the left looks just like the Poké we've seen before! It shines with the same shade the Bezant and the silver coin Bader has."
"Heh heh. That's because Poké's made from copper and aluminum here," the chameleon chortled. "Not every Pokémon can see it like you or I can, but it shows in the way the sun shines purplish off of it!"
Elty and Nida continued to stare. Yes, they had heard that some Pokémon saw the world around them differently. And they knew some Pokémon could pick out red apples from the green leaves around them even when when illnesses like colds had weakened their sense of smell, but this was the first either had heard of this "purplish" color they couldn't see.
Something about the explanation seemed not to satisfy Pleo though, the little bird rubbed a wing under his beak before he pecked at the Poké.
"But can't anyone with aluminum and some copper just make their own Poké then?" he asked.
"Are you kidding?" Elty grumbled, shaking his head. "Copper's only mined on one island this side of the Cradle, and it's controlled by the Imperials. And aluminum's even more of a pain in the butt to get!"
Wait, it… was?
"Indeed. The only real way for anyone to get workable aluminum is to get it from things left behind from the age of humans, like shipwrecks and skeletons of their flying machines on the seafloor," Bader answered as he set down the bag's bubbly Cleanse Orb onto the counter alongside the crackling Petrify Orb. "It's said that in their time, humans knew great magic that allowed them to work aluminum so well that it was as common to them as paper… Makes you wonder just how they managed to pull it off back in the day, but no one's been able to crack that nut since the Cradle was created."
The lizard put a claw into the bag and found it empty. He looked down at the counter and counted up the orbs… That was it, it looked like. The Pokémon cleared its throat and looked back at Team Traveller.
"Anyhow, I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, but… I can give you 60 Poké for the lot," he offered. Pleo beat out his wings giddily. They were going to get 60 entire Poké! That was a lot!
"Yay! That's great-!" he cheered, until he noticed exasperated looks forming in Nida and Elty's eyes at the Kecleon.
"60 Poké?! To totalne zdzierstwo!" Elty growled. "I've seen Sunny Orbs alone sell for more than that before!"
Or maybe it wasn't…
"We'll keep the orbs, thanks," the Nidoran frowned, her whiskers twitching with annoyance.
"Eh? Well, suit yourself," the Spinarak chittered. As the spider pushed the orbs back into the satchel and lowered it down to Nida, he continued on. "I mean, we'd like to give you a better deal, but I'm afraid that my partner and I can't stray from the guidelines the Merchantry gives us without a good reason."
"Yeah, especially for customers that don't stick around too long," Bader said, shaking his head. "Wandering travelers are treize à la douzaine in our age."
Nida opened her mouth in order to rebut the lizard but caught herself. Maranda did say they had to keep Pleo's identity quiet, and with the way that everyone other than Margi had taken his claimed identity earlier, it wasn't likely it would help them get a better price for their orbs. The Nidoran shook her head and turned away with the group, just as a squeaky voice suddenly called out, dripping with sarcasm.
"Kinda like Kecleon and shops like these, huh?"
Nida growled after hearing the voice. Even out here, she had to put up with unsolicited snarking! Why, if she hadn't known any better, she would've thought the Sentret watching unimpressed from further up the walkway was Scout.
"And you three! Did you seriously come all the way out here just to fail at haggling?" the brown and white Pokémon added. "You could've done that just fine back at Calino's shack, you know!"
Wait a minute! That Sentret was Scout!
"Eh?!" Nida squeaked.
"Scout?!" Pleo squawked. "What are you doing here?!"
"Wait, who is this guy again?" Elty whispered.
"Playing 'mailmon' and not getting as much of a break from Bluewhorl as I'd like, it seems," he sighed. "And what are you three doing here? Don't you think you're going to be worrying the town by running off with the local sea-?"
"Ack!" Elty shushed. "Don't say that out loud!"
Wait a minute. This could work! Scout was here in Boisocéan with everyone else, so naturally, he had to head back to Tromba sometime soon!
"Oh… Scout?" Pleo said, sidling up to the Sentret, his voice starting to grow excited. "Are you heading back to Tromba anytime soon?"
"Is water wet?" he replied. "Where do you think I'd be going after running these letters off to Hariti's kids?"
Team Traveller traded excited looks with each other. This was it! They finally had a chance to go home! To see Crom, Kiran and everyone else again!
… Right?
Assuming Lyn didn't head back to lie in wait for them.
Or that the Company hadn't sent someone else after Pleo.
Or that something hadn't happened to the town.
Nida shook her head. As much as it pained her to do this, they really couldn't take a blind leap here. Like taking a blind leap in a Mystery Dungeon, the consequences weren't guaranteed, no… But if they did happen…
Would they be able to get past them again?
"Er, actually… we can't head back right just now, but," she murmured. "Could- Could you send a message for us?"
"Hrmph, not looking forward to that earful from your mother, but fine," he sighed, fishing out an envelope and a piece of charcoal from a satchel slung across his shoulder. "Just make this snappy!"
Nida grabbed the charcoal and moved it close to the surface of the paper, only to stop and twiddle the black lump anxiously.
"Er… how do we let them know that it's us?" she asked.
"What do you mean?" the Growlithe huffed. "Just put your footprint on as a signature like a normal Pokémon!"
"Huh?" Pleo chirped. "Pokémon can tell who you are from your footprints?"
"Well between that and your writing, how can't you tell who a Pokémon is?" he scoffed. "Granted, I guess you could just draw one on- But- Oh."
The Growlithe's ears flattened out. So that was why the spike ball hesitated! The Company clearly was willing to go far enough to get Pleo that they'd shackle him down in metal chains… Was it really that out of the question that they'd try writing a fake letter to throw Tromba off?
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Scout exclaimed. "Just put a feather in there!"
The team blinked and looked over at Pleo as he turned from preening himself.
"Huh? Oh! Like this?"
The young Lugia nudged a loose feather off his body, which flitted to the ground. Nida grabbed it at its shaft and saw that it had split along the top. More importantly, the feather was a silvery-white color that she simply couldn't think of any other Pokémon having. Why hadn't they thought of this earlier?
"Ah! Right!" she cried. The Nidoran hastily scrawled a message onto the paper with the charcoal explaining that thanks to luck and perhaps divine providence, Pleo had broken free with her and Elty and was now with them on Boisocéan…
"'Please let us know when it's safe to come home'," she murmured, finishing the letter. She folded up the paper and deposited it and the feather into the envelope before giving it over to Scout.
"So wait, since you're here…" Pleo muttered. "We can stay with you after we get out of the Medic's Hut tonight, right?"
The Sentret's eyes narrowed and grew unamused as the three younger Pokémon before him shot overwide smiles and sickeningly cheery looks at him. He shook his head and put his foot down.
"The lodges here in Boisocéan charge per head, and I only have enough Poké with me to cover one," he grumbled. "You want to sleep on something better than a mat under the stars, you figure something out!"
Some disappointed looks crept up over Team Traveller's faces. Yeah, Scout had a point… but did he have to put it that way? Elty sighed and shook his head.
"I guess it wouldn't hurt to check the guild's listings here," he said. "It shouldn't be that hard to earn our keep here that way, right?"
It took a while to find the guild again in the maze of walkways in Seahive, but before too long, Team Traveller found themselves standing under the conical roof of the guild's bustling main hall. There were Pokémon making small talk with each other like a colorful group of Vivillon sketching out the details for a meetup at a juice bar later that evening. There was a haughty-sounding Emolga recounting a past time of "coming out on top on some feral Rhinolove" in the Mystery Dungeon, which was met by stifled snickering and an overeager "Da, da, konechno!" of a bemused blue Gastrodon. Off in a corner, an Igglybuff puzzled over a mission listing in its hands for retrieving Perfect Apples, wondering where to even start looking for one of those rare fruits. The Mission Board was further ahead, in a convenient place just up front at one of the approaches.
There was just one problem…
"Er… guilds need to keep track of badges in order to get Pokémon out of Mystery Dungeons, right?" Elty asked as he looked here and there about the crowd of Pokémon. "How exactly are we supposed to make that happen, again?"
They would need someone to get them out of the Mystery Dungeon after they completed any work in it.
"Uhm… well, if we were back home, I'd say we should find one of the Psychics," Nida replied from a crate she had hopped atop to try and get a better view. "Except, I'm not sure how we find them here."
"Maybe we should try asking someone?" Pleo suggested. As it so happened, the sound of a pair of Water-Types with mud-covered scarves passing in a channel of water nearby could be heard.
"Lighten up a little!" a Poliwhirl said. "I'm telling you, these gummis here were totally worth the swim!"
"I still don't know why I let you talk me into this. We're supposed to be working!" his Remoraid partner hissed back. "You know as well as I do that we need to keep a low profile in a place like-"
Maybe the fish and the cute marshblob would know! They seemed to be familiar with the town at least, so asking them about where a Psychic might be couldn't be that bad of an idea, right?
"Oh, hi!" he chirped, waving. "My name's Pleo! Do you happen to know-?"
Much to his surprise, after the pair turned to see him, they seemed startled by his presence.
"Gih!"
"Ack! Cover blown! Cover blown!"
And swiftly swam off, leaving Pleo to stare blankly as Nida shook her head disapprovingly.
"Hrmph, I see even this town has its slackers," she grumbled.
"Aww," Pleo mumbled, his head and wings drooping from disappointment. "But then who's going to tell us where to find a Psy-?"
"You rang?" a voice answered from behind. Team Traveller whirled around and saw Meyrink behind them bobbing lazily in the air just above the planks of the walkway.
"Ah!" Pleo squawked, hopping back with a start "How did you-?!"
"I sensed your troubled thoughts… Well, that and I've been watching you three wander around in circles around the guild all this time. It's kinda hard to miss," the Claydol chuckled. "Headed back into the dungeon so soon after what happened?"
"Er… well, it would be nice to have a more comfortable place to stay than some mats on the outskirts," Nida admitted sheepishly.
"And a roof over my head to keep the rain away would be nice," Elty added. Pleo blinked at the Psychic-Type and tilted his head at the creature as he wondered aloud.
"What is it that you need to do with our badges before we go in?"
"This," it replied. The creature closed its eyes briefly and opened them with a glow. Just then, the three felt tugs against their scarves, and saw that Meyrink had made an unseen force pull at their badges and cause them to glow. As suddenly as it came, the force subsided and the glow, both on the badges and in the Pokémon's eyes faded.
"Can't find you in there if I don't know what to look for, after all!" it cheered. "We Psychics use badges like yours in order to sense around the parts of the Mystery Dungeon you go to!"
"Eh? But what about the other Psychics?" Pleo asked. "Don't they need to also do your glowy thingy so they can see where we are?"
"They usually learn as they go along, Pleo," Nida explained. "Teams wind up passing by teleporters like Meyrink on a regular basis coming out, and they'll often take the opportunity to sense badges they haven't seen before."
"That's right!" the Psychic-Type bubbled. "So don't get too shocked if you feel a little tug or two when passing by out on the pad! It means the others are just doing their jobs!"
"Thank you," Nida said, giving a grateful dip of her head to the Claydol. "I guess now it's time for-"
"A mission!" Pleo cried. "Let's go pick out a mission!"
The young Protector hopped up into the air and beat his wings, flying haphazardly on his way over to the Mission Board at the front of an entrance to the complex. As cries of "Hey, watch it!" and other surprised exclamations rang out, Nida and Elty ran after the little bird.
"Pleo! Wait!" the Nidoran called out. "Don't fly off like that!"
The two weaved and ducked their way past passing Pokémon on the walkway and finally caught up with Pleo, who was staring excitedly at the listings. The two turned, and saw that the board's listings were rather sparse
"Why are you in such a rush anyways?!" Elty yipped. "Aren't all of the good missions claimed by the evening?"
"But there's a bunch of pretty pictures on it right now!" Pleo chirped. "Nicer than the ones back in Bluewhorl!"
Sure enough, most of the remaining listings did have pictures and doodles on them.
"Of course they are," he groaned. It was convention to leave doodles or pawprints on mission listings in order to help Pokémon with weaker reading abilities, such as young Pokémon or recently-recruited ferals, figure out what they needed to do. But even so, the feather duster shouldn't be that much more preoccupied with appearances!
"Well, we don't need anything too fancy right?" Nida asked as she started to look at the board. "Just something to help us get by a little."
"Like one of those fetching missions! Here's one with an apple on it!," Pleo cheered, pointing at a listing towards the center. "Does it want us to find apples?"
Nida frowned and her ears drooped after she saw the listing. Sure enough, it was a mission for gathering apples. But wait a minute, they were on their own! If she didn't want to do the apple mission, she could always do another!
"Er… let's see what other missions are on the board first," she said, shaking her head. Thankfully there were other missions. Not very many, but still a few to choose from.
"Well, there's this one asking for a delivery Pokémon to pick up an exposure chest from some tailor here in town and drop it off in the dungeon by noon tomorrow," Elty offered. "I'm a natural at delivering things, so we'd just need to find wherever this 'Stitch in Time' tailor is and then go to drop the chest off afterwards!"
Nida flattened out her ears. They hadn't found the Post Office after all this time today, and they hadn't seen any tailor's shop with that name in their search for it earlier today. How were they supposed to find it while time was working against them?
"Let's pick something that won't get us lost at the first step, Elty," Nida sighed.
Elty frowned and furrowed his brow, but he had to admit, the spike ball had a point. He glanced back at the listings, and looked around before Pleo squawked aloud at the sight of a listing halfway up the board.
"Oh! Nida! Nida!" he cried. "Let's do this one with the footprints!"
"Hrm?"
Nida reared up on her hind legs and sniffed at the listing, reading the short, hurried lines on the paper aloud to the group.
"'Stranded thanks to earlier run-in, low on supplies. Need rescue'," she murmured. Now that was a worthwhile mission. Sure, rescues didn't always reward the best for missions, but they were what Rescue Teams were made for!
"Hmm… Eight floors… not that long… all we need to do is find- Wait…"
The Nidoran set the paper down on the planks of the walkway and frowned. Elty and Pleo crowded around, and the Growlithe's expression quickly fell into an exasperated glare.
"Oi! This is the distress message that you wrote last night!"
"Hrm?" Pleo asked. "But didn't we already get rescued, Nida?"
The Nidoran sheepishly laughed and crumpled up the notice, slipping it into the bag on her back. Elty rolled his eyes at the spike ball and looked back up at the remaining few listings. It was then when he noticed a dog-eared sheet with a pair of stick-figure Pokémon sending beams against each other.
"What about that one? It's a request to meet someone called 'Daraen' in front of the town shrine to help him out practicing 'Substitute Battling' on the outskirts," he offered, pointing at the scrap of paper. "The footprint's a little sloppy, so I can't really get a bead on the species, but the place seems like it would be easy enough to find! We saw the shrine a bunch of times today!"
"'Substitute Battling'?" Pleo wondered.
"It's a team sport that's played at home sometimes, nothing we couldn't handle…" Nida mulled, tilting her head at the listing. "But I thought Guilds preferred those to be listed at Juice Bars instead of cluttering up mission boards like these."
"Well, it kinda has signs of being taken down more than once," Elty said. "So my guess is that it's probably considered clutter here too.
"It's still helping, isn't it?" Pleo piped up. "And we'd be getting a reward for playing!"
"Healing berries, even!" Elty added after glancing at some runes at the bottom of the post. "Even if it is clutter, if the Pokémon keeps their end of the deal, it would still be worth our while. It would keep us from getting into a jam like last night."
Nida paused, and pondered as she looked at the humble slip.
"I suppose that it couldn't hurt to pick an easier job. And getting paid to help someone practice at sports sounds fun enough," she mumbled to herself. "Oh, why not? Me parece bien! It would also give us a chance to get to know the town better before we take on tougher requests, too."
"Heh… let's give that 'Daraen' a practice session he'll remember!" she cheered. The Nidoran hopped up against the board and took the listing down. With a request like that, it'd be the most fun they'd had in a good while.
Meanwhile, further out at sea, Lyn's battered ship was still in much the same place as it had been the entire day. Its captain clambered up a rope ladder along the ship's side and shook himself dry from a long day of fruitless searching. He turned to a perched Crobat and asked.
"Anything?"
"Nothing, I'm afraid," the bat replied, shaking its head. "And we've even double-checked the search sectors just in case the Lugia's been moving around!"
"Urgh… this can't be happening," Lyn growled. "Birds may fly, but even they don't just suddenly dissa-!"
All of a sudden, a voice interrupted from the other side of the ship.
"Captain! Good news! We sighted the Lugia!"
Lyn took off and darted in the direction of the voice, where he saw a Poliwhirl and a Remoraid bobbing in the water, with staring eyes coming at them from every direction around them.
"What?!" Lyn cried out. "Where is he?!"
"He's currently in Seahive Square!" the Poliwhirl exclaimed.
"Yeah, we both saw him!" the Remoraid added.
The words hit Lyn like a stiff smack in the face, and made the Water-Type grit his teeth and growl.
"Grr… of course," he seethed. "The one place he chose to hide in and it has to be somewhere that would cause a diplo-"
The Samurott then blinked, and shifted a piercing glare over to the pair of Water-Types. Something wasn't adding up here…
"Wait a minute, how on earth did you two find out he was on the island to begin with?" he demanded. "You were supposed to be doing searches of sea sectors!"
The two blanched and looked at each other, the Poliwhirl taking the opportunity to shove a satchel with some gummis visible at its mouth under the sea's water.
"I… er… uh… found a lead?" he offered, giving a forced cheery expression and hoping desperately that it would be enough to ward off Lyn's wrath.
"Very fortunate for you, it seems," Lyn harrumphed. "I'll overlook the admission of insubordination. This time."
The two let out a sighs of relief, and quickly swam off out of Lyn's line of sight as a Weavile approached the Samurott from behind.
"So what now?" he asked. "With the Imps keeping tabs on what happens here, launching a raid on Seahive can't possibly turn out well for the mission. And even if that wasn't an issue, the ship isn't exactly in good shape for any sort of mission."
Lyn exhaled through gritted teeth. As much as he hated to admit it, he couldn't just run off and potentially embroil his superiors in a major dispute… Or at least, not based off a pair of slackers' words.
"Send word to the search teams to monitor the skies and seas around the island. If the Guardian gets off of that rock, pin him down and grab him," he ordered. The Samurott sidled up against a railing and put a paw to his brow, scowling at the horizon. "I… need to think a few things through before I make any decision about what to do in that accursed swamp town."
Author's Notes:
- Mimigal - French: "Spinarak"
- commerce sans frontières - French: "trade without borders"
- To totalne zdzierstwo! - Polish: "This is a total ripoff!"
- treize à la douzaine - French: "a dime a dozen", lit. "thirteen to the dozen"
- Rhinolove - French: "Swoobat"
- Da, da, konechno! (Да, да, конечно!) - Russian: "Yes, yes, of course!" (BGN/PCGN Romanization.)
- (¡)Me parece bien! - Spanish: "Sounds good to me!"
