Auranosa Paydirt

[Jackie Cat]

On the border of Prosper and Auranosa was a town nestled between mountain crags, battered about by high winds, and yet of particular interest to travellers. This was Paydirt, a mining town that had found a peculiar economic niche: the procurement of uncanny magitech from local dungeons, to be tinkered with and used to fashion marvelous inventions, which could be sold at exorbitant prices. This arcane and highly specific trade attracted all sorts of eccentric pokémon, along with tough-minded (or possibly crazy) delvers and prospectors. After all, if you couldn't work with wonder orbs, there were still mineshafts for other precious resources that needed digging.

Accessible mostly by dirigible, Paydirt didn't see too many travellers come and go on a day-to-day basis. A pair of stout mooring towers for airships – the north roost and the south roost – provided fortnightly berths for commercial passenger vessels. Between these structures, residences were densely-packed and practical, with extra space carved out by digging into the mountain rock below. The worst storms were kept at bay by a strange device that emitted a field that nullified the worst atmospheric disturbances – but wind farms around the town reliably kept its inventors supplied with power drawn from the usual steady gales.

If you weren't looking for work, hunting a bounty, or simply passing through, then if Paydirt was your destination, it was probably to buy the services of the mad inventors that made this place their home.

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[Jackie Cat]

Sada had insisted on touring much of the multi-level settlement before settling on an inventor she would contract with, and who would contract with her in turn. Eventually she worked out a deal with a local Claydol, an odd being by the name of Petros, who agreed to lend his assistance in return for being allowed to make a detailed study of Sada's unique biology. The professor cheerfully pressured Jade into handing over some of her loot from the Gardens as a deposit on the agreement, and then got stuck right in.

It had been several hours, now, during which time Jade and Virga would have had a chance to explore, recuperate, observe, or do whatever else they pleased. They had, after all, little choice but to wait until progress was made with Betel, and they'd have to spend the time somehow.

Surely Sada and Petros would be done soon...?

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade took a bite out of the extremely dry, crunchy protein bar she'd bought from a food cart—one of the few snack items they'd had that was edible for non-mineral mon. As she chewed it over with some effort, she leaned her upper body over the edge of the railing and felt the warm updrafts from the lower levels of the cliffside settlement. After a proper night's sleep and the fairly uneventful ride here, she was starting to feel a bit less exhausted, though she would've thought twice before doing any training. Still, the whole sequence of events had left her with a sort of jittery, anxious energy and no way to burn it off, to the point that she almost wished she felt up to some battling. Things weren't back to normal yet. Betel was still being worked on, most of the team was still unaccounted for, and until at least one of those things was resolved, it would be hard to truly relax.

There was, of course, also the fact that Lugia was here with her now. She realized, of course, that the mass summon bringing new Wayfarers into the fold meant that she couldn't reasonably expect Lugia to go anywhere else. Being on Forlas at all meant being tied to the same objective, and Lugia didn't have any other connections on the planet. Part of her still couldn't help cursing the fact that they'd failed to prevent the summon in the first place, because now they were both stuck like this.

A flutter of wings. The Rookidee landed on the railing next to her, staring out over the mountainous valley.

"So. You have been here for months, and yet, it's as if no time has passed for our world," Virga said in a low, matter-of-fact voice, still processing everything.

Jade bit back the urge to say, 'It's not like you would have noticed even if I had been gone.' Not helpful. On the ride to Paydirt, she'd explained some of the basics of what the Wayfarers' had gone through up until now, mostly as an excuse to pass the time.

"I imagine I should anticipate similarly being trapped here in this form for months," Virga continued, shards of bitterness in her voice.

Jade inhaled through her nose. "We don’t know that. We’ll be here until our mission is done."

"Given that my reason for being here is seemingly to aid you, that isn't particularly reassuring."

Jade finished the last bite of her snack bar and found herself wishing she had water. "Well, we didn't know our mission at first—we were just flying blind since Betel didn't know anything either. But we learned pretty early on that Cipher coming here from another world was destabilizing the fabric of the world. Now it’s another group doing experiments with powerful energies."

"Destabilizing the fabric of…" Virga's words trailed off into an incredulous scoff. "This world is rife with fantastical nonsense."

Jade shrugged. "It makes sense when you get used to it. There’s plenty of things we’re used to that’d be unrealistic here."

"Such as?"

"Lots more Legendaries, for one."

Virga then turned away, considering. "Hm. Regardless. It seems equally likely that once your group has solved this particular conundrum, some other crisis will inevitably arise. Who is to say that is where it will end?"

Jade paused, gripping the railing with her paws. "We don't know," she said finally, wishing she had something more definitive.

Still, a lot of things were coming together. Betel's status as a created Voice of Life, disrupting the tenuous balance of Auriga and Powehi. The artificial Saint designed to wield Radiance. Radiance and Shadow being harnessed by unprecedented numbers of offworlders. A long chain of summons with all of them right in the middle of it...

Everything was connected, and it all led back to Starr making contact with Betel in that basement. Infiltrating the CDE, she'd felt like they were so close to finding Starr at last. Now, it felt like they couldn't be farther away.

"What is it?" Virga asked, fixing Jade with those piercing eyes.

Jade turned away, swallowing the lump in her throat. She hadn't missed having her mental state on display at all times. "It's Starr. Starr's the one who called us here, originally."

Virga blinked.

"My friend. Ho-oh’s chosen."

"I realize that," Virga added quickly, flustered.

Jade ran a claw along the railing, her tail swishing behind her. "So yeah, that's why I'm here. Not that the rest of that stuff isn't important, but... that's why."

Virga was silent for a long moment. "I see." Her talons clinked as she shuffled a bit. "We should... return to the workshop. They might have some progress on your beetle."

Jade let out a slow exhale. "Yeah, alright."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Minutes later, Jade and Virga returned to Petros' workshop, where Sada was animatedly explaining something to the clay construct. Her hands gesticulated and her crest quivered as she spoke passionately— It shortly became clear that she was talking not about rebooting Betel, but about her recent observations on uncanny energy signatures, which Petros appeared to find genuinely fascinating.

"AH, MEOWTH AND ROOKIDEE," he exclaimed in his signature booming monotone, once one of his many eyes identified them. "WELCOME BACK. I TRUST YOUR TOUR OF PAYDIRT WAS PLEASANT!"

"Hello again," said Sada, abruptly bringing her infodumping session to a stop. "I thought I'd wait for you to return before completing Betel's restoration. Are you ready?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

As Jade descended the ladder to the workshop floor, her senses were again bombarded with the buzzing of machines and the scent of metal. Virga fluttered down after her and alighted on the end of one of the many cluttered shelves, largely out of view. Jade found her eyes automatically sliding away from looking at Betel's segments all separate and opened up--a bit of a tall ask with them being all hooked up to Wonder Orbs and floating in the air above the worktables. So she instead just focused on Sada, (mostly because she still hadn't figured out the right way to make eye contact with Petros).

"So you've... made progress, then?" Jade asked, not wanting to get her hopes too high. (A quick, involuntary glance at the faceted torso, with lights and cables all spilling out.) "What sort of repairs did you have to do, anyway?"