Novelux Whisperwind Comb Mystery Dungeon

[Jackie Cat]

Rifts in the wider region around Novelux tend to be well-researched, regardless of their relative dangerousness. The Commonwealth government in the city and the Taleska Nation councils in the plains keep a close watch on dungeons in their respective spheres of influence, issuing permits and warnings to would-be delvers.

Whispering Comb is watched, too – but not by them.

It was a grey midday, the daylight soft through cloud cover that thickened as one approached the southern hills. There was no real route to speak of – just open, rolling grassland, and a thin frost still creaking underpaw in the shade of low hills – but the daylight turned strange, the clouds curling into elusive patterns, the closer the party came to their destination. As the Wayfarers drew near to the dungeon site – escorted by Aipom Roscoe, one of Articuno's personnel – they heard a message from Betel.

Heroic spirits! The rift is in your vicinity, but you must be alert for other pokémon in the surface world. I am detecting significant trace Aura energy that suggests the recent presence of especially strong and/or numerous pokémon. A rival expedition may frequent this spot, and could return if you linger.

I recommend that you advance into the Mystery Dungeon imminently. I will do what I can to coax the rift into compliance with your incursion, and to return any casualties safely to the surface.

Laura clutched her scarf and scanned around, walking slowly forwards. This looked like an ordinary plateau to her...

"...So where is it?" she asked, softly.

Then with an unnacountable vertigo, the world shifted in her perception, putting her fur on end. There it was. The entrance to Whispering Comb, right in front of them. The feeling was not unlike that of stepping onto a missing stair, jolting the body. Falling. The ground dipped into a grey hollow, visible only when one was about to fall into it. Or was it her whisper that had revealed it...?

There, inside the hollow, were the traces of recent habitation. A scrap of tent-cloth, a stray cigarette butt, a bottlecap... And there— There was a shadow that tripped the eye. Stare at it long enough, and it seemed surely to be a meagre cave entrance, down into the earth, then a shadow again as the eye watered.

She approached the opening. The air moved through it, like the world breathing.

...silo pha nessa latheh... ​

​

...woe serresh remehr...​

She shook her head, blinking away a momentary trance.

Nobody'd said anything.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Koa & Archie
Nova & Mhynt
Odette & Kimiko
Andre & Ridley
Laura & Isidora
Jade & Leaf

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[Jackie Cat]

Deep in Whisperwind Comb, past the liminal threshold that sent adventurers into mindscapes drawn from each other's secrets, traumas, and inner feelings, the dungeon returned to a kind of... normalcy. The honeycomb calcite patterns returned, as did the honeyed false-light, and the susurration of the cave-winds. It almost felt somehow subdued.

Besides that, though, there too were odd traces of surface civilisation. Boardwalks on the cave floors, railings hammered into the walls, oil-rag torches hanging from the rocky ceiling. For those who'd done some research, they looked like Taleska Nation designs – some modern, some very old indeed.

Into this strange melding of nature and architecture, pairs of Wayfarers began to filter their way back together, emerging from their unexpectedly intimate experiences in various states of emotional distress or catharsis...