Sojaveña Wilds Silver Ravine Mystery Dungeon

[Jackie Cat]

Several miles upriver from town, Silver Ravine took shape, the river seeming to cut a narrow gorge directly through a rising landform. The effect was that of cliff walls rising up around any 'mon who entered it, looming higher as they advanced inward. The ravine itself was fairly walkable; shallow riverbanks and the occasional wood-plank bridge meant one wouldn't need any specialist gear to travel to its heart.

At its heart, however, was a mystery dungeon. One of only a few extant ones nearby Frontier Town, and the closest. Adventurous youths still sometimes went out there to play, or on a dare, and sometimes had to be rescued by a ranger. Until recently, that had been Luxio Brisa. Now, it was part of Wattrel Nico's patrol.

Both the river and the ravine were named for silvery sand at the water's edge, glittering with dungeon dust. A few small, stubborn trees here and there, and patches of weeds and underbrush, survived as mundane foliage. As the route began to twist and turn in on itself, defying normal spatial navigation, the rate of uncanny berry trees increased, and the silver in the silt began to form coin-like deposits...

And the likelihood of encountering a territorial wild helioptile or woobat increased.

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[Jackie Cat]

Nico alighted on a tree branch and gave the would-be delvers a winged salute.

"Here we are!" he announced, with a little pride. "Guess here's as good a place as any to part ways, if you're feelin' confident. But on the other foot, if you could use a guide or anything, I don't mind coming with you guys. It's your call, and I'm happy to do the favour, even if I don't really get what it is you're doing!"

The Wattrel ranger smiled winningly, and adjusted his goggles to sit on his brow.

 

[Virgil134]

Rodion looked around for a moment as he scanned his surroundings, before turning to Nico with a nod.

"We'd appreciate that," the Buizel said. "We'll probably be fine on our own if this Mystery Dungeon is as tame as you said, but it wouldn't hurt to have a guide just in case the Mystery Dungeons here work different than the ones back home."

He paused and hesitantly glanced at his teammates behind him, before turning back to Nico with a sigh.

"Or if you're from someplace that doesn't even have Mystery Dungeons."

 

[Weazel]

To be perfectly honest, while trying to reconnect to the Cloud was certainly a worthwhile goal in and of itself, Archie was here for one reason, and one reason only. The Oshawott absolutely lived for Mystery Dungeons. He’d had the itch to explore this place ever since he first heard of it, and he’d jumped at the chance when the opportunity came knocking. As for his traveling companions… Well, he recognized Leaf from working the security job with her. As for the other two, this was his first serious interaction with either. One, the strange mishmash of yellow lizard and blue fish was not a creature he’d ever seen before. It somehow looked wrong, like its pieces didn’t fit together like they were supposed to.

The Oshawott had been standing on the cliff edge, looking down into the ravine below, but he returned to the group proper when he heard them start to discuss next steps. Specifically, if they were going to bring the ranger, Nico, with them.

“I’ve got plenty of experience with Mystery Dungeons back home, so no worries on my account,” he said, grinning. “Still, I’d never turn down the additional help if it’s offered.”

It probably would be smart to keep Nico around. Like the Buizel said, none of them knew if the rules of these dungeons were the same as back home – that was something they could only speculate on!

 

[Phoenixsong]

Leaf should've been jazzed to be here. Okay, she was in fact absolutely definitely 100% jazzed to be here. Finally a chance to see one of these "mystery dungeons" for herself! By all accounts she'd read so far this Silver Ravine one was pretty tame, but still! Who wouldn't jump at the chance to explore a shifting space where worlds might meet and anything could happen? Even the pale sand underfoot seemed to shimmer, like the ground itself was itching to change.

The mayor's creepy prison wagons were still out there somewhere, though, still gearing up to cart people away. But Laura and the beldum hadn't gotten back to them with any breakthroughs, and in the meantime there wasn't a whole lot else to do other than try and get back in touch with the Voice. At least finding easier ways to keep everyone synced up instead of screwing up sounded more productive than nothingburger scouting runs for monferno who couldn't fix their own wagons.

"No objections here!" she said, giving Ranger Nico a quick nod. She'd never been in one of these places and wanted to learn from an expert; Archie and the buizel seemed confident enough, but even they admitted they might not understand everything that'd be going on here. Also, not that it was a big deal or anything, a ranger being there to see how quick a study she was wouldn't exactly hurt her chances of joining the Ranger Union sooner rather than later.

"How often d'you come out here, Ranger Nico? There anything in particular we need to keep an eye out for?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Nico's bright smile and breezy, relaxed gestures with his wings made him seem very much at ease in this environment, even though the way ahead looked rather claustrophobic for a bird.

"Happy to come along," he affirmed. Then, turning to Leaf, "I try to do a flyover at least every couple of days, weather permitting. These days parents are pretty careful about not letting their kids head up this way, the highways are well-established, and the dungeon's real quiet anyway, but it pays to be careful."

He winked, and gestured with a webbed foot to the shallow water beneath his branch perch. Wedged between a clutch of river pebbles was a disc of gleaming Poké that, once seen, unaccountably drew the eye towards it.

"Plus, it's a dungeon. Sometimes I can pick up spare uncanny items, or a bit of loose uncanny gold. It's pretty funny, don't you think? How the more dangerous a dungeon is, the greater the incentive for folks to go there? Heh. Just be mindful and try not to bother the locals too much. They're mostly just wild 'mon, but if we go deep enough, we'll find phantasms. They're... more aggressive. Not particularly tough, though, so we should be fine."

 

[IFBench]

"Why do you keep calling things uncanny as if you're a memester?" Arctozolt asked, tilting its head.

 

[Virgil134]

Rodion raised a brow.

"Phantasms?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Nico gave Arctozolt an odd look. To be fair, this was normal when anyone looked at Arctozolt.

"Uncanny just means it works off dungeon magic. Rolls outta the beak better than calling everything dungeon this and dungeon that, especially when a lot of it works just fine outside of the emm-dees."

He nodded his head up at Rodion. "Phantasms is what most call the things that look like 'mon in the wilder parts of dungeons. They tend to attack on sight and can't be reasoned with. Even wild 'mon that don't have language can still get the gist of 'hey, back off', or whatever. Phantasms just fight you, and they vanish into thin air when you beat 'em."

 

[Virgil134]

Rodion tilted his head. Things that couldn't be reasoned with and looked like Pokémon, yet fought like Pokémon and vanished when defeated? Sounded like Forlass' Mystery Dungeons had their own set of dangers. Thank the gods that no Mystery Dungeon in the Cradle had anything like these 'phantasms'. Sure, ferals could get territorial, but they were just normal Pokémon with a different lifestyle in the end. Pokémon that could be reasoned with, and sometimes even be persuaded to join your team.

"I guess we'll keep an eye out for any phantasms or wild Pokémon then," Rodion said, before gesturing at the dungeon's entrance. "You lead the way, Nico."

 

[Phoenixsong]

Were pokémon that weren't even real pokémon at all weirder than pokémon that were real but not people? You'd think yeah, obviously, the whole "not real" thing, but the phantasms were inside a funky magic dimension anyway, not just being Like That like it was normal. Man but this place was wild.

Leaf's horn flashed briefly as she fished the little glimmer out from the shallows. Definitely a coin, pressed into an actual coin shape, though not marked with anything she'd have any hope of recognizing. She gave it an experimental telekinetic toss; it flipped and spun just fine, though she might've only realized after catching it that she wasn't sure which sides were heads and tails. Also that "heads or tails" wasn't a very useful answer to that question. Eh. It looked neat, at least.

Besides, why wonder when they could actually head in and find out? "I think we've gotta head in pretty far for what we need, so sounds like we'll end up seeing at least a few," Leaf said, tucking the coin into a saddlebag pocket (barring any objections from Nico). "But if they're not that tough then they shouldn't get in the way much. Not after last night, right?"

 

[Weazel]

All of this sounded decently familiar to the dungeons he explored back home. Home to call kinds of useful goodies if you went deep enough to look for them, but also home to dangerous hostile Pokemon who attacked on sight only to vanish upon defeat. They didn’t call them phantasms back home, and there were multiple theories as to what they were, where they came from, and where they went upon defeat, but otherwise they seemed to line up with the Pokemon Archie faced back home.

“All the way to the bottom, right?” Archie asked Leaf. “Should be fun!”

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Righto," said Nico, adjusting his flight helmet. "I'll lead on, and trust you lot to keep up. It's not my usual work, but I owe your group a favour, if not your four specifically. Plus, I admit I've always been curious about what's at the end of this place..."

The seabird took to the air and set off ahead, staying above the river to keep between the ravine walls. Every so often, he called out something 'uncanny' he'd spotted – loose oran and cheri, stacks of Poké, even smooth round stones he swore were useful, even valuable, as projectiles.

At first, the 'dungeon' seemed no different to a normal narrow gorge, just a continuous and gently winding path... Then it began to fork. Pathways opened that took the river elsewhere, or flowed into it from unexpected angles. The river remained, always, but it flowed as if only deferent to gravity, and not fully obedient like water in realer places...

"Mind yourselves," cautioned Nico. "If anyone gets separated, we'll have a merry time finding them. The pathways change all the time, and none of this nonsense is visible from the air."

 

[Weazel]

One huge difference that Archie immediately noticed, was that the entrance into the dungeon was not obvious in the ways it was back home. As they made their way into the ravine, things just became more dungeon-y as they went, until the river suddenly took on a mind of its own and started splitting and weaving into various pathways and rooms. That was interesting, and probably made the dungeons here more dangerous, in a way, then the ones back home.

As they began their delve, Archie made sure to collect what resources he could carry, and generally encouraged the others to do the same. Never knew when one might need the berries, and what wasn’t used could be held onto for another delve, or sold for a tidy profit. The Poké was good, easily worth its weight in equivalent legal tender. And, well, Archie recognized a Geo Pebble when he saw one. Definitely helpful if he or the Buizel encountered any Helioptiles, better to deal with them from a distance than risk getting electrocuted.

So far so good, Nico was a fairly competent leader and guide, and his advice made perfect sense to the Oshawott.

 

[Virgil134]

Rodion swam along the river as the group entered the dungeon, keeping a close eye for any items, traps or other Pokémon. For a Mystery Dungeon, this place sure didn't look like one. Or at least, not one he was familiar with.

No fog marking the dungeon’s boundaries, no out of place staircases, no obviously alien layout… Why, you could easily wander in here without even realizing it was a Mystery Dungeon!

Though, he supposed that made Forlas' Mystery Dungeons more treacherous. If you were unfamiliar with the area, you wouldn't know you were in a Mystery Dungeon until it was too late.

 

[Phoenixsong]

“All the way to the bottom, right?” Archie asked Leaf. “Should be fun!”

"Yeah!" she agreed, already pawing the ground a little in anticipation. She hurried after Nico and the others as soon as he took off, eager to see what lay in store.

One huge difference that Archie immediately noticed, was that the entrance into the dungeon was not obvious in the ways it was back home.

For a Mystery Dungeon, this place sure didn't look like one. Or at least, not one he was familiar with.

Leaf, on the other hand, had absolutely zero frame of reference for any of this. Everything was new, and fascinating, and... not really all that different from "outside", actually? Not a single swirling vortex of unidentifiable energy, or even stuff that should've been on the floor upside-down on the ceiling. (That last one probably required an actual ceiling to exist in the first place, to be fair.) The river did seem to split and twist and rejoin in a bunch of fancy non-patterns here and there, and the path was much windier down here inside the ravine than it had looked from above, and there was still that odd sensation of change hanging in the air, but that was kinda it. Undeniably mysterious, sure, but, like, the cozy armchair detective kind of mystery. Maybe this was what the books had meant when they'd claimed Silver Ravine wasn't all that "active".

Even if it wasn't the rush she'd been hoping for, though, it was at least interesting to watch the strange scenery go by, to try and find anything that might be noteworthy and then see if Nico or Archie or the others thought it meant anything. As they picked their way over the weird stone formations and past the indecisive river, she kept her eyes peeled for any signs of pokémon in particular. It was so hard to tell how "deep" in their group really was, what with how subtly everything seemed to shift in here. Would they even be able to tell when they'd reached what they needed to, or when these phantasm-things were going to start showing up?

 

[Jackie Cat]

"So," said Nico, hesitantly, "I've been wondering what your group's whole deal is since you turned up on day one, of course. Everyone has, I imagine. I won't kid around with you – first thing the chief told me was to look into that! And, uh, now you guys were part of some ruckus at that party thing, I hear? Haven't seen the papers yet, but it's hard not to overhear. News travels, and all that."

He swooped low over the water and plucked a small gleaming orb from the shallows with his beak. It went neatly into a pouch on his leg, with surprising aerial grace.

"Pardon me; wonder orb. Not sure what kind, yet – but probably nothing special. Right, yeah, I was about to ask – where are you guys from, anyway?"

He looked back over his shoulder, riding warm air for a moment to hover in place.

 

[Virgil134]

"I'm from a place called 'the Cradle'," Rodion answered. "More specifically, Orleigh Island, which is located in the Empire of Anyilla. As you might be able to guess if you've read the Frontier Gazette, it exists in a different world outside of Forlas."

 

[Phoenixsong]

Leaf half expected someone to shoot her a warning "watch what you say" look, but then Rodion up and rattled off basically his whole address. If Nico was one of those people they were supposed to be cautious around, then whoops. (Being super-secret heroes sounded cool and all, but keeping track of what they weren't supposed to be telling people and what they had already told people and what they were trying to see if other people would tell them was a god damn nightmare, actually.)

But Rodion seemed fine with it, and also Laura had straight-up admitted they were "offworlders" right there in the paper, hadn't she? If Nico had read the news then that's literally the exact information he'd have gotten anyway, straight from one of their own. So hell, no reason not to just rip the whole friggin' bandage off:

"We're all from other worlds," she said, shrugging. "Places other than Forlas. Lots of different ones, apparently." She sure had no idea what sort of world Arctozolt was from. One where pokémon evolved from accidents at novelty kids' bath toy factories? "If you think that sounds weird, then congrats! You got the right answer, and also I agree with you! But, well, here we are!"

 

[Weazel]

“I’m from Treasure Town,” Archie said, “It’s a seaside town, and it pretty much hugs the coast its entire length. The main commercial district is built up on a bluff that’s shaped like a Sharpedo, but the rest of the town spills down around the beaches.”

He’d never asked why Treasure Town hadn’t built very far inland, all things considered, instead following the coast northwards from the bluff the original settlement was built on. Its lack of expansion southwards could easily be explained by the presence of Beach Cave within a few minutes walk from the bluff to the south, but the lack of expansion eastwards did sometimes puzzle the Oshawott. But, that was neither here nor there. In any case, the cat was well and truly out of the bag when it came to their extra-dimensional origins, so Archie figured it wasn't a problem revealing as much as he had.