Frontier Town Sun Stone Saloon

[Ambyssin]

That one got a growl from Nova. "All the more reason for me to get this thing off so I don't lose control."

 

[Butterfree]

"I'll try to make the best of the situation," he muttered before turning to Dave. "This Radiance, though, it sounds promising. Is there only one person in Sojavena who knows about it? I wonder if the Wardens in Sunward have heard of it, given they protect the embodiment of the Sun."

"You mean how we can attest to how we couldn't have succeeded without your help? Anyways," Koa said, shaking his head and turning to Dave. They had to focus on what they could deal with right now. The idea of radiance fascinated him. The power of the saints... "This radiance thing sounds really promising but if we want to ask the Escarpa for help we have another problem. I don't know if any of us are strong enough to. From what little I could research, they're very... reserved? It seems like they don't trust strangers easily without a good show in battle. Unless they allow us to fight as a team, then maybe we have a shot."

"Hm. I'm familiar with Radiance," Mhynt said. "I don't have the powers now. But if it behaves at all like how it does back home, perhaps I could help with training... when we find a means to gain that blessing."

"The way Beetle described it, Radiance is a power associated with 'saints', which is apparently what legendary Pokémon are called over here, and also legendaries are real because this universe is a cartoon." He rolled his eyes. "There aren't a lot of them alive, and only some of them use Radiance, and this Wandering Light is the main one around here. Apparently some rare wild Pokémon have it too, and some people here and there who achieve 'mastery of their own souls'. Which, I don't know, sounds like spiritual mumbo-jumbo to me but so does being here in the body of a fucking dog. Beetle also said something about a monastery or something where people try to gain it through meditation, but it sounds a lot easier if someone can 'pass it on'."

Koa had said something about the Escarpa. He turned to him. "As for fighting them, I don't know, but we can at least go there and ask. Maybe they'll be willing to exchange information if we tell them we'd like to get to the bottom of what happened to that Brisa girl."

The Treecko... was talking about being familiar with Radiance? And also about it being a 'blessing'? He squinted at her. "Okay, hang on, can you elaborate on what you know about this power exactly?" He paused. "And for that matter, do you have any clue why this Owen guy would be here? Was he part of our group and just never made it to Frontier Town, or what? Or... you said something about him being captured before you came here? So do you think whoever captured him sent him here somehow?"

 

[Namohysip]

Okay, hang on, can you elaborate on what you know about this power exactly?

"I don't know if it's the same here," Mhynt said as a preface, "but in my world, Radiance was a power derived from a being of great light. From there, that power was passed down, bestowed, and diluted over time, but Legends who were around at the time of that blessing still had it the strongest. I have a direct blessing from that power, which was also what allowed me to transform into Lunala.

"Radiance lets you do things that no ordinary Pokemon can do, but it has a few side effects in my world. For one, it makes you larger. Owen, for example, had grown to something like thirteen feet tall as a Charizard. It also strengthens your impulses if you do not regularly meditate or otherwise keep your emotions in check. The effects are weaker on immortal Pokemon who can handle the power better by default.

"If your Radiance is completely out of hand, that energy erupts from your body all at once in a massive explosion. That could be a problem, but I haven't heard any stories of that in this world... Unless, of course, they naturally have a better check on their powers here than a nondivine being trying to harness it."

And for that matter, do you have any clue why this Owen guy would be here? Was he part of our group and just never made it to Frontier Town, or what? Or... you said something about him being captured before you came here? So do you think whoever captured him sent him here somehow?

"As for Owen..." She shook her head. "I do not know. I don't think Alexander is capable of flying into this realm. Not on his own, anyway. But... what happened to him here? It's what I'd feared would happen to him in my home world. So, I can't be sure if... somehow, that carried over, or..." She glanced at Nova's Poke Ball. "No. I don't think it can carry over.

"Bad luck seems to follow him. Maybe he... simply got captured. Again."

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Our cloud buddy might already be doing that to an extent."

Mhynt, you mentioned I might be supplying some kind of 'blessing'...

Betel's voice had changed imperceptibly since accepting their name. There was marginally more confidence, more purpose.

I am not empowering you heroic spirits directly, but one effect of the network I maintain between you all is that any powers obtained by one or more of you will be more easily subsequently obtained by the rest.

The network also allows you to all boost each other. You are stronger together – in a literal sense.

 

[Namohysip]

"Interesting..." Mhynt nodded in understanding. "This explains how we were able to take down a few established authorities when a united front.

"And... I believe that also means, now more than ever, we need to make sure we are all stepping in the same direction. Dissonance in our team will also mean a disruption of our power and our growth..." She chuckled. "How clever. Perhaps you did not design it intentionally, but that's certainly one way to make sure we cooperate."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade let out a sigh. Part of her wanted to argue that stuff like a team name wasn’t useless—having some sort of team identity was useful to being able to work together, and it sure didn’t feel like they were great at that right now. But there probably wasn’t any way to say that without sounding like a little kid, so she didn’t.

"As for fighting them, I don't know, but we can at least go there and ask. Maybe they'll be willing to exchange information if we tell them we'd like to get to the bottom of what happened to that Brisa girl."

Until now, Jade had sort of tried letting Dave’s words slide off her ears—it seemed like he thought everyone here was stupid, and he also sounded angry about Legendaries for some reason, which was a fun reminder of everyone back home. But at the mention of Brisa and the Escarpa, she had to say something.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to the Escarpa for a long time, I just didn’t think it would go over well if we couldn’t hold our own in a fight,” Jade said in a low voice. She took a deep breath and added, “But we managed to beat the rangers, even if it was just a test. So I want to find them now. Brisa thought they might be able to help.”

 

[Jackie Cat]

Damn it. Laura snapped her fingers and clicked her tongue.

"I forgot. You met Brisa, didn't you? Do you still have that, uh, earring thing...?"

Jade nodded, fishing it out of her bag. Brisa's sky-blue feather earring, fashioned from dungeon gold.

"That's a hell of an in, whether we put up a good enough fight or not. Pretty sure putting up a good fight will make the bigger difference either way, mind..."

It had been a couple weeks since Jade arrived. Finding the rest of the party had meant it hadn't been urgent for Jade to find the Escarpa for protection, but they should probably get on that as soon as possible...

 

[Butterfree]

"Radiance lets you do things that no ordinary Pokemon can do, but it has a few side effects in my world. For one, it makes you larger. Owen, for example, had grown to something like thirteen feet tall as a Charizard. It also strengthens your impulses if you do not regularly meditate or otherwise keep your emotions in check. The effects are weaker on immortal Pokemon who can handle the power better by default.

"If your Radiance is completely out of hand, that energy erupts from your body all at once in a massive explosion. That could be a problem, but I haven't heard any stories of that in this world... Unless, of course, they naturally have a better check on their powers here than a nondivine being trying to harness it."

Okay, now she was making this sound like some sort of bizarre supernatural steroid drug. What the fuck. (And... wait, what was that bit about transforming into a fucking Lunala?)

But before he could say anything about that...

“I’ve been wanting to talk to the Escarpa for a long time, I just didn’t think it would go over well if we couldn’t hold our own in a fight,” Jade said in a low voice. She took a deep breath and added, “But we managed to beat the rangers, even if it was just a test. So I want to find them now. Brisa thought they might be able to help.”

"I forgot. You met Brisa, didn't you? Do you still have that, uh, earring thing...?"

Jade nodded, fishing it out of her bag. Brisa's sky-blue feather earring, fashioned from dungeon gold.

Dave blinked. "Excuse me, what? You met her and just, what, never brought it up? Brisa as in Brisa Escarpa, half-human daughter of Jesse Stranger?"

He dragged a paw over his face. Jade had been at Drungfield's fucking office like three seconds before they'd started talking about Brisa. God. "I mean, okay. Would've been great to know that before we went on a whole expedition to her cabin investigating her disappearance. So she's fine? When did you meet her exactly?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Jade's fur bristled, much as she didn't want it to. "It was... before I got to Frontier Town," she muttered, keeping her eyes firmly on the wall. "Brisa was helping me, but we split up back in Landsverd because she was being followed, and she wanted to draw them away." She wanted to just leave it there, but her brain automatically started generating the flood of uncomfortable questions he was obviously going to hurl at her. "I don't know who was following her. A bunch of Croagunk. I don't know if they were involved in the Shadow stuff or not."

"And she didn't... she never mentioned she was half-human."

 

[Butterfree]

Huh. So Brisa was in danger by the sound of it, just... on the run somewhere in the Commonwealth. Drawing pursuers away from some Meowth she barely even knew, like a true fucking hero.

His heart was pounding uncomfortably and he didn't know why, a strange, sickening tightness in his throat. Automatically his brain conjured up the image of Jean telling Will to run, I'll distract them!, all excited conspiratorial determination to save the day. (That wasn't even what had happened. She'd come home. Thank fuck.)

Dave sat down, exhaling slowly through his nose. "Probably it was the fucking Covenant going after her, wasn't it. Nolan sure went on about how they spend their time keeping tabs on humans and their activities. And Gerome implied there'd been incidents with her not knowing her own strength."

 

[IFBench]

"Sick fucks, with their constant surveillance," Arctozolt muttered. "Got 1984 going on around here."

 

[Namohysip]

"Hopefully they didn't rope her in somehow," Mhynt said. "Losing any allies, however brief they were with us... Mm. Odds are still stacked against us. Hopefully, we will meet them again soon."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Laura nodded, glancing at Dave.

"So, you checked out a cabin that belonged to Brisa Escarpa and Jesse Stranger...? Did you find anything out while you were there?"

She consulted her notebook.

"And did anyone else have any leads we've not covered so far? I've got Lucien, the Rangers, the Escarpa and their Saint, the Wardens..."

And a few half-baked ideas, like trying to find the Wishing Star, or the Saint of Victory she'd heard the samurai talking about. She didn't mention those out loud, fearing she'd look naive.

 

[Inkedust]

"I suppose all that is left to ask is what to do regarding Nolan and the ledger. We haven't appeared to have come to much of an agreement on that before our attention shifted elsewhere," Bellatrix replied with a twitch of her tail. She looked towards Steven. "Perhaps it may be too early to deeply plan about potential infiltration but I am of the mindset that at least one or two sessions looking over the ledger with the inteleon bears little risk, especially if done in a group. Not to mention, with all the information pooled here, we may be able to scout for any further leads, ties and whatever extra knowledge the Covenant of Light holds without showing too much of our hand."

She laid back down on her cushioned seat. "Perhaps if we uncover something worth chasing there, we can further discuss any ideas of infiltration then."

 

[Butterfree]

Laura nodded, glancing at Dave.

"So, you checked out a cabin that belonged to Brisa Escarpa and Jesse Stranger...? Did you find anything out while you were there?"

Christ. Dave rubbed his face. "Well, first of all, Jesse Stranger vanished some five years back. In his study there was a convenient diary where he wrote about how Ignatius Voclain had threatened to kill Brisa if something happened again." He thought back. "He had this note with a list of names, most of them struck through. The ones that weren't included Gerome, Voclain, 'Dakota' and 'That fucking lizard prick in the stupid fucking hat', which is almost definitely Nolan unless there's another lizard prick with an even stupider hat around. Best guess at the point of the list is he was trying to work out who was human or had human ancestry." He left the implication for Gerome unstated.

"Then he had a corkboard up with plans of heading east. The last entry in the journal talked about how 'she spoke with me last night' and 'her latest sorry sucker couldn't hack it' so he needs to do it himself, and mentioned how he was planning to stop by Gerome's on the way out. Still need to have another talk with him about it. The 'she' there sounds like it might be some kind of summoning entity that talked to him in his dreams like Betelgeuse? Someone who'd summoned someone else who couldn't do it. Sounds fucking familiar."

He sighed. "Then a while ago, Brisa was supposedly hanging out with some feline Pokémon, dark fur, who'd appeared out of nowhere seeming unfamiliar with the world, and that's got to have been Betel's previous human hero. Right?"

 

[Ambyssin]

"Math checks out, I guess," Nova said. That all sounded like important clues and stuff. But there were plenty of others to jump on that. "Maybe we'll run into 'em. Maybe we won't. Time will tell."

He glanced over his shoulder. "How much longer is this gonna go on? I was already tired enough..."

 

[Namohysip]

Mhynt nodded solemnly. "We have a lot of things to follow up on," she said. "I want to... do some thinking on Owen. I don't know if I can help. I'd need to see how he truly fought... I may have advice on how to deal with it. Gerome... He seems to know more than he lets on, but perhaps he's keeping promises for their sake, too. Meanwhile, we have another lead with the board. The runner may have connections and knowledge."

She straightened. "When should we check in again?" she asked more loudly. "It's... admittedly hard to coordinate meetings like this with how large our group is. Would there be a way to streamline that?" She said this skyward.

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Thanks, Dave. That all sounds pretty reasonable... Please would you ask Gerome about it when you get a chance?"

Laura took down bullet notes, mentally preparing to go through them later and expand on them based on what Betel remembered of the meeting. She glanced to Bellatrix and Mhynt, and resolved to wrap things up. They'd not been at it for that long, but it sure felt like longer, given the huge crowd of 'mon and how intense the bickering had been for a minute there...

"I think we have to honour the agreement to pool information with Nolan on whoever's making the Shadows. He is working for the Commonwealth, and I think we'd attract a lot of flak from his real bosses if we suddenly pulled out of the agreement. Besides, we need leads on whoever's behind the Shadows. As for future team meetings..."

If I may? My ability to connect with you – and to connect you to each-other – is dramatically improved by the anchor at Silver Ravine, but if the party could anchor our network at more dungeon locations, I should be able to facilitate instantaneous long-distance communications between you all to some extent.

Huh. Just gonna casually throw that out now, then?

"Sure thing, Betel. Hopefully between everything else we're facing, we can get that done, too."

That would be wonderful! Thank you and good luck, heroic spirits.

"And I don't feel like calling ourselves heroic spirits, or 'the party' or whatever. Sod it – by show of appendages, all those in favour of calling ourselves the 'Wayfarers'?"

It wasn't unanimous, but it was a clear majority. Good enough.

"Alright. 'Wayfarers' it is, then."

 

[Ambyssin]

"So, we're done, then?" Nova's mask muffled his yawn. "Gonna go to sleep. Then deal with my business."

 

[Namohysip]

"I suppose that makes me your designated guardian, then," Mhynt said, idly rolling the Poke Ball in her palm before holding it out for Nova to tap. "I'll be going with him to investigate this Bulletin Mastermind. If we have anything important to report back, we'll be sure to inform you. Others... may want to attend, if said mastermind allows it. For security."