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Sojaveña Wilds Twilight Quarry

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Okay... so she was going to wait on the Tailwind. At least they wouldn't have to worry about being detected if they were using it to escape. Grace had wished she'd come in better prepared to help Owen-- all she had was her growing control over Radiance. What was the best idea to capture Owen... and then what? What happened after that? Could they cure him?

Would she be safe from him?

"What does Owen normally smell like?" she asked, only realising later just how odd of a question that was.
 
"Spice? Like, for cooking?" Nova sniffed the air with his beak. "Ugh, don't tell me we're heading to, like, a fire pit used for cooking. May as well check it out. Maybe something of value's hidden there. In, like, a 'it's such a stupid hiding spot no one would think to look here' sort of way."
 
"I don't... know what Owen smells like in that way," Mhynt said, though it seemed like she was giving it a lot of thought. "Maybe he'd smell of comic book pages, considering what we'd gotten from him last time..."

They advanced anyway, unsure of just what would await them. Mhynt could only imagine what kinds of ingredients Alexander would have been interested in procuring...

And then, just as they rounded the corner, they found the source. And just as quickly--

A black blob shot out of the ground in front of them. Mhynt hopped back, drawing her blade...

But the wraith didn't attack. Instead, there appeared to be a... menu on the top of its... head. It probably was a head. It was hard to tell what.

"...Excuse me?" Mhynt whispered, still keeping her blade up.

Behind them, they saw a table. A normal kitchen table made of wood and stone. A stone stovetop meant to be powered by a Pokemon's flames. And, in a cabinet, the source of the smells--a spicerack, still open as if the wraith had been experimenting with it.

There was a plush toy that vaguely resembled a Treecko sitting on one of the chairs; it was otherwise mundane and there was nothing special about it.

One of the cupboards was also open. Inside, there were... countless cans of soup, bags of powder for soup mixes, even some raw ingredients that weren't as perishable.

Mhynt seemed dumbfounded. And a little uncomfortable.
 
"I, uh, think we found where Owen eats." Nova hesitantly approached the cabinet and reached out to open the other cabinets. It looked as though this was going to end up a waste of time.
 
Soup, soup, and more soup. Alexander seemed to have a disturbing obsession with soup. Some of the labels and ingredients were familiar, too--Frontier Town for older cans, and Blaguarro Town for more recent ones.

The wraith approached Nova again, the menu still balanced on its head. They were all varying soups. Was even a Soup of the Day--veggie basil.
 
Dave squinted at the blob, and the menu, and the soup. "What the actual fuck? Alexander is running a soup kitchen?"

He padded cautiously up to the chair with the Treecko plushie and sniffed it. "Is this meant to be you?" he asked Mhynt.
 
Well, if he played along, maybe the dungeon would... not immediately peg the team as hostile and send enemies?

Unfortunately, Nova was more of a meat than veggie guy. He scanned the menu and pointed to one that fit the bill.
 
The blob seemed to... nod... and then blobbed its way to the stove, creating a small gout of dark flames as the stove itself warmed up.

Mhynt didn't want to look at it directly. "...I suspect as much. He had a bit of an obsession with me." But when she looked at the kitchen and everything else...

"But... soup was never at all something I'd... associate him with," she stated. "This is... weird. Somehow I wish it was something actually sinister. Not this."

There was a bit of soup residue on the plush toy's mouth region, detectable only because of Dave's sharp senses.

"Does Frontier Town have therapists?" Mhynt idly wondered.
 
"Uhhh... Drungfeld, maybe?" Nova mumbled, watching the stove burn. This soup was probably shadow corrupted and not something he should actually eat, wasn't it?
 
Surprisingly, the soup looked like soup. Perfectly normal soup. Didn't even give off bad aura readings... Maybe the flame had to directly touch the stuff to give that kind of corruption.

It was certainly a very odd flame...

"...Is there anything we can do here?" Mhynt wondered aloud. "It's... so peculiar."
 
Nova looked at the soup, then the flame, trying to sense its aura. Slowly, he lapped at the soup like the sorta dog he was.
 
The blob stared at Dave for a few moments as Nova tried the soup, which, surprisingly, tasted... normal. Cooked pretty well, too. It'd compete with local restaurants.

The strange blob churned until it... created a mouth to speak with, splitting open part of its body to form toothless jaws. "Hello?" the blob replied to Dave.

It did talk. Technically. Mhynt shivered.
 
Nova barely managed not to send soup down the wrong pipe. "Oh, hey. You, uh, got a name?" And was there, maybe, some sort of aura underneath that shadow?
 
"Don't... remember," it replied.

"Do you have any memories?" Mhynt asked. "Why are you here to cook? Is... that all you do here?"

"Yes. It is... what I want..."

Mhynt eyed the others warily. It didn't seem like they'd get a whole lot out of the guy, but...
 
"You work for a Hydreigon named Alexander?" Dave asked. "Did he tell you to... make soup?"
 
"Yesss..." The blob drooled a little bit of... tar? It probably wasn't tar but it certainly looked like it. "He killed me... and said I should make his meals forever..."

"That's more like him," Mhynt muttered to herself, arms crossed.

"I finally have a purpose..."

"Do you remember what you used to do?" Mhynt asked.

"I was... a chef... somewhere..."

He seemed to lose interest in the conversation and returned to the stove to.

"Do you remember what you were?" Mhynt pressed.

No reply. He was too interested in cooking.
 
Bellatrix tilted her head at the sight. Admittedly, she had been stunned into silence at the sheer absurdity of the whole display but she supposed it was better than what had occurred last time. After the initial shock wore off, she steeled herself and stepped forwards to get a better look at the shadow to ask her own questions.

"All of this just for him?" she asked, tapping her claws against her arms. "It's a bit excessive unless it's also for the Void Shadows... Do Void Shadows need to eat?"

She looked around, trying to find anything else of note to try and figure out more than Alexander's taste in food. For just a moment, Bellatrix's mind found itself picturing Alexander being lured out of the shadows through the promise of soup, a thought that was very quickly dismissed.
 
What the fuck. The contrast of horrid murderous shadow dragon and insistence on making his minions cook fucking soup of all things had Dave wondering if the Western had become a comedy. "The fuck's a Void Shadow? Is that what this guy is?"
 
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