Chapter 15 - Memory
Spiteful Murkrow
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Treueplatz, 18. Herbstmond, 1027 n. d. B.
Für wen es angeht,
Im Namen von Graf Lacan von Wellenhafen und Eure Majestät Siegmund von Wahrheit möchte ich Sie um Ihre Hilfe bei der Suche nach Pokémon bitten, die für eure Majestät und seine Streitkräfte von Interesse sind. Ihre Beschreibungen, der letzte bekannte Aufenthaltsort und die bekannten Decknamen wurden den beigefügten Fahndungsplakaten beigefügt. Sorgen Sie dafür, dass sie so schnell wie möglich kopiert und verteilt werden.
Nehmen Sie jeden lebendig fest, der den enthaltenen Beschreibungen entspricht, insbesondere die Milza. Dieser Punkt kann nicht genug betont werden, da die Bilanz des Sieges für die gegenwärtigen Feldzüge der Armee gegen das Königreich der Ideale möglicherweise von ihrem Wohlergehen abhängt, mit potenziell existenziellen Auswirkungen auf das Reich, wenn ihr etwas zustoßen würde.
Als solche erwarten Graf von Wellenhafen und Eure Majestät, dass diesen Aufforderungen entsprechend nach Ihren Möglichkeiten entsprochen wird. Die Schatzkammer von Eurer Majestät wird alle zu zahlenden Prämien kompensieren, einschließlich der Prämien, die für Fälle von Identitätsverwechslungen ausgezahlt werden. Für unsere gegenwärtige Mission wäre es weniger schädlich, solche öffentlichen Verlegenheiten zu erleiden und später stillschweigend Wiedergutmachung zu leisten, als zu riskieren, dass diese Pokémon Ihren Gendarmen entkommen, indem sie sich selbst zweifeln.
Ich wünschte, ich könnte offener über unsere Umstände sprechen, aber die Pflicht zwingt mich, vorsichtig zu bleiben. Seien Sie sich bewusst, dass die Festnahme dieser vier für Ihre Reihen die wichtigste Aufgabe sein könnte, die sie jemals erhalten haben.
Wichtig genug, dass es die Zukunft dieses Landes bestimmen könnte, welches wir „Wahrheit“ nennen.
- Dringende Depesche von Ritterin von Herbergau, Sophia Krarmorstochter weitergeleitet an den Grafschaftens Oberwachtmeister von der Osttorsteppe Provinz
After a brief stop to get directions from the receptionist, Lyle and Irune lugged their drunken teammates up to a room on the hostel’s second floor which overlooked the nearby river. Much to the Quilava’s disappointment, there was no lock on the doors, nor on any of the other rooms in the hostel. Either the proprietors didn’t feel they needed them in such a small village where many of the normal residents probably already knew each other, or else they were just too cheap to get them fitted.
Lyle suspected it was probably for the latter reason. While the cushions that had been laid out as rough mattresses on the floor were more presentable than bare heaps of straw, they were visibly worn and threadbare. Said floor’s wooden planks sported stains here and there that looked like they’d come from water leaking onto them from the ceiling… there were some other possible causes for them that crossed the Quilava’s mind in light of the tavern downstairs, but he tried not to dwell on them too much.
The room had little in the way of furnishings beyond a chest and two stools pressed up against the wall furthest from the door—a makeshift table and dresser which did neither task particularly well. And opposite the bedding, there was a piece of glass scuffed about its edges hung on the wall for a mirror.
How on earth had that Braixen ever been excited to spend the night in a place like this?
… Perhaps that was unfair of him. As meager as the accommodations were, he supposed that he shouldn’t be complaining about them too much. They were still better than the ones he’d had in his burrow for the past two years, and they were good enough that his teammates had managed to fall asleep on them a while ago. Kate and Dalton had passed out quickly enough on their bedding, though Lyle suspected those beers the two got plastered with probably helped. He couldn’t hear any sign of Irune being awake either, so why was he still squirming and unable to fall asleep even after the moon had reached its high point in the night sky?
Was it those gnawing feelings of guilt he had over not coming to Alvin’s aid in Moonturn Square? Was he still shaken from his experiences in Primordial Woods? His worries of how the hell they were going to make it across half the Kingdom and through some godsawful Mystery Dungeon out to the Divine Roost?
Lyle’s gaze drifted towards the floor, where from the window’s direction, there was a silhouette of its crossbars dividing up a patch awash in bluish-green light.
Right. Whatever was really keeping him up, the amount of light coming through the windows from the auroras outside definitely wasn’t helping. He couldn’t tell whether this was a fresh set of them or if the skies had just been disturbed all evening, but the ones outside were stronger than he’d remembered seeing in some time. Enough so that he was pretty sure he could read a book from their light without having to light his vents up for illumination.
The Quilava shuffled off his bedding and stretched his body, before stumbling drowsily over to the window. He reared up as he approached and raised a paw to reach for the curtains… only to feel it rub up against wooden timbers. Lyle blinked and looked closer, when he discovered that aside from impressions from where a rod for them used to be, there was no sign of any curtains to speak of. The window at least had wooden shutters, but they were mounted on the outside of the building and opened outwards from the room… without a pull-cord attached for a smaller Pokémon like him to draw them shut. Trying his luck with the Flapple receptionist downstairs would surely go nowhere fast—Flapple weren't normally nocturnal types, and at an hour like this, the Dragon-type was surely fast asleep by now.
“Cheap dump,” he grunted.
Lyle flared in irritation and slunk back to all fours as he drifted back for his bedding. He briefly turned his head after hearing Kate snore and shift in her sleep, as she waved a claw at an unseen presence in her dreams.
“Nrgh… Why would it matter if he wants it or not? He's a jerk and got the snacks, and you want it more.”
Lyle blinked for a moment. That must’ve been one hell of a dream Kate was having there, not that he had any idea of how he’d be having any of his own anytime soon at this rate. The floor creaked as Lyle began to settle back in on his bedding, when he chanced to notice the strap of his bag poking out of the chest-table at the far end of the room.
Right. He still had that Sleep Seed he found from Raptor Rock in there. Dalton and especially Irune would surely give him crap for using it as a sleeping aid instead of saving it for a fight, but it was his bag and Sleep Seeds weren’t that hard to come across. If push came to shove, they could just nick a replacement on their way out of town.
The Quilava walked over and propped the chest open, rooting through his bag with his paws until he came across a seed with ruffled, bristled tips. He pulled it out, and sure enough, it was the familiar pink-and-white of a Sleep Seed. The Fire-type wrapped his paw around it, before reaching up to close the chest’s lid when he noticed something further inside and stopped himself:
There, among his and his teammates’ belongings was a dog-eared, tawny bag tucked towards its rear, with the corner of what looked like some sort of slate poking out of it.
… That was Irune’s bag, if a bit emptier since she’d taken out some of her “treasure” to sleep on again. It was hard to believe she’d been so desperate to get it back on their first night together in Waterhead Cave when it was a ratty mess like that. He figured that all those stupid baubles must’ve helped wear it out, but… Irune had never mentioned having a slate with her.
Lyle took a moment to check his surroundings. There was no sign of movement and heard nothing other than his teammates’ snoring. He knew it was a stupid idea, but he just couldn’t help but wonder…
Was this slate or whatever it was what had made Irune so worried about Myra holding onto her bag? If so, what on earth was it?
Lyle let curiosity get the better of him as he stooped and set the Sleep Seed down on a stool, and tugged the Axew’s bag towards him.
“What on earth have you been keeping in there?”
Lyle tugged at the corner of the object poking out of Irune’s bag, and quickly discovered it was a wax paper sleeve. Of the sort that Hunters would use to keep handbooks or the like safe from being soaked.
The Quilava raised a brow and pulled the sleeve open and found a book with a beaten brown cover and a strap over its front. He cracked it open and found it had blank pages, a few sporting water damage or discoloration from dirt. Probably sometime before the protective sleeve came along.
Lyle flipped through the pages back to the front where he began to see line after line of runes written in messy paw-writing. After going through a few of them, one of the lines caught his attention as he stopped and read it aloud to himself.
“‘I had the same dream again last night’?”
It was a bit hard to make out the rest from his darkened corner. Lyle’s vents began to flicker to life, but he quickly decided against trying to use it to read—just in case Irune wound up smelling their smoke. The Quilava crept forward a couple paces, and he raised the tome up to the light coming through the window as he returned his attention to the passage he’d come across.
I had the same dream again last night. Cade told me to talk to the teacher about it, to see if she could help me make sense of it since like me, he doesn’t have parents to ask. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, though.
In my dream, I saw the village on fire from high up in the air and a scary monster that was angry at me. I thought it was just a nightmare that kept coming back, but when I described the monster to Cade, he said I dreamed about some sort of god and was worried that I’d make others mad if I told them about it.
I don’t want them to think that there’s something wrong with me, but will it really upset them so much if I tell them? It was just a dream, right?
Lyle blinked as he realized that he was reading some sort of diary that Irune had been keeping. Though a ‘dream’, huh? The Quilava couldn’t help but grow curious at the mention and began to turn the page when sharp pain suddenly shot through his right leg.
“Gah!”
Lyle reflexively flared up with a start and dropped the diary to the floor. He whirled as he tumbled onto his flank and curled up to nurse his leg where he saw a ruddy streak. Then came Irune pouncing on the dropped book and crouching over it, as she glared up at him and growled much as if he’d chipped one of her tusks.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to keep your paws to yourself?!” the Axew hissed. “Don’t go through my bag like that!”
Lyle pushed out frustrated fire from his vents and bared his teeth back at the smaller Dragon-type. The little ankle-biter really was trying her hardest to make sure they’d never want to see each other again after clearing out the Divine Roost, wasn’t she?
“Didn’t anyone teach you not to pick a fight?” the Quilava shot back. “I thought we were all supposed to be on the same page here!”
“You don’t need to go through my diary to get the treasure from there!” the Axew spat. “And I certainly don’t need you pawing through it!”
Lyle bit his tongue and hesitated. It was admittedly hard to argue the point. He didn’t think that Dalton kept a diary, and he was pretty sure Kate wouldn’t either given that her ability to read and write runes had always been a bit shaky, but he couldn’t imagine either of them would be happy if he tried to pry into their personal lives unasked.
… No. Even if it was nosy, this was the same ‘mon who’d led a Fähnlein straight to them by keeping tight-lipped about what happened between her and the army until it was too late. The least she could afford to do was to at least give him a hint as to what she was up to in there.
“Irune, what’s in that thing?” Lyle demanded. “Why are you so afraid of anyone else knowing about it?”
The Axew turned away and crouched over the book, guarding it much as if she were a Spoink about to be separated from her pearl. She let out a quiet growl and yanked the tome up, wrapping her arms around it tightly.
“I’m not going to tell you that,” she harrumphed. “It’s my diary.
Lyle reared up and let the fire from his vents roar to life, as the Quilava failed to hold back his temper and grabbed at the young Dragon-type’s free arm with a low, irritated growl.
“Well it’s obviously more than just a list of your old crushes for you to be acting like this!” he snapped. “You already screwed us over more than once already by keeping things to yourself, so why don’t you at least give me a general topic of what you wrote in there?!”
The Axew flinched and trembled briefly, before she grit her teeth and whirled around, firmly tucking her diary under an arm as she jabbed a finger back in Lyle’s snout with a sharp hiss.
“H-How about you remember your current circumstances, Quilava?! The diary either stays mine and private, or I walk!” she shot back. “If you’re going to be such a snoop, you and your friends can try your luck getting to the Divine Roost and finding that treasure on your own!”
Lyle shot a long, piercing scowl back. Who did this little twerp think she was to think that they’d be the ones who’d be worse off from parting ways? And yet, something about her wavering eyes seemed off. Scared. Desperate, even. As if she were back in Primordial Woods and backed into a corner by Rankar.
He didn’t know what had gotten into her, but Lyle knew Irune seemed agitated enough to do something stupid that she’d regret later. His, Kate, and Dalton’s own hopes for a future boiled down to snagging enough loot from the Divine Roost to pay off Pokémon that would otherwise be at their throats. As unsatisfying as it felt right then, it wouldn’t do any good to alienate the Pokémon that they were clinging to for that chance.
The Quilava let his flames die down and dropped back on all fours. He frowned and kept quiet, brushing past the young Dragon-type as he looked back with a dismissive snort.
“Whatever, just go back to sleep,” he spat. “And try to act like you’re on a team with us. You’re not helping your own odds by constantly being snippy like this!”
Irune fell silent and seemed to shrink back a moment, but Lyle decided he was too tired to see what that was about. He snagged his Sleep Seed off the stool and made his way back to his bed, where he flopped down on his cushions and curled up on them, hiding the seed under his flank. He pawed at the nick on his leg and flattened his ears when he found it still stung to touch. The Quilava glanced off at Irune’s bed under the window where he saw she was settling in uneasily and trying to curl up with a thin blanket as she visibly shivered from the cold.
… Whatever, it wasn’t his job to be her hearth.
The Quilava popped the Sleep Seed into his mouth and bit down. He felt a wave of drowsiness come over him, as the greenish-blue light on the floor faded out and the world went dark and he flopped against his bedding.
It was one of those dreams again. They’d been coming more and more frequently over the last year, but it had been a while since they’d repeated for Irune over the course of multiple days.
She was in a darkened sky, feeling as if she’d just been caked over by a Blizzard. Falling over points of light as the world spun around her. She always felt miserable in this dream for some reason. Probably because every time she had it, she was always helpless. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t move her limbs, couldn’t feel them for that matter, even as the air whistled past her again and again.
The ground disappeared during one rotation, as she caught a brief glimpse of a giant, gray figure spiraling out of the sky. She rolled back towards the ground, and after another spin, the figure in the air was gone.
Everything in this dream would come to her muddled, much like it would’ve if she’d just woken up after a restless night where she’d barely slept. Or if someone really had frozen her over with a Blizzard. But even so, she began to make out more things from the ground below.
Rooftops. With smoke and fires curling up here and there among them. The bay of roars and crash of attacks mixed with the booms of cannons spewing Apricorn shot and Blast Seed shells rang out in the distance beyond its fringes. And here and there, the cacophony would be punctuated by screams.
Of pain.
Of fear.
Of death.
She was spinning slower now, as she saw the rooftops fast approaching, with her body centered over the tatty roof of a pavilion painted in pitted and worn dark colors that had been sealed up. The same one from her hometown. Some of the nearby buildings were different, but every time, the shrine was the same.
And every time, Irune was unable to move. Unable to raise her head, to flail her limbs, to look away as her path evened out over the short stretch of steps up to the boarded-up shrine. She tried to scream and cry out for help, but the words wouldn’t come to her mouth. Not even the pathetic whimper she wanted to let out came as the lanes and rooftops began to take form.
For a brief moment, the rooftops slipped from her field of view as Irune fell lower and lower. Her vision increasingly filled with the steps to the shrine below her until it blotted everything out.
And then like it always did, everything went dark and she could no longer hear or feel anything.
“Irune?”
Irune jolted awake as a voice pricked her ears. She felt her collection of baubles brush up against her scales and rattle against each other as they shifted on her cushion. The Axew panted a moment, noticing that the thin blanket the bed came with was lying in a heap on the side, and that Lyle was in front of her, looking down at her and blinking wordlessly.
“Is something going on?” the Quilava asked. “You were thrashing in your sleep again.”
Irune righted herself, and gathered up a few glass beads from her bedding. Now that her eyes were adjusting, she saw that aside from fire flickering out of Lyle’s vents, that the room was still dark. A quick look at the windows revealed the sun was barely starting to poke over the horizon. She briefly noticed that the Quilava’s face almost had a twinge of worry to it, before the Axew forced a neutral expression over her face and shook her head back in reply.
“I… I just had a bad dream. That’s all.”
Irune wasn’t sure if they really were just dreams at this point or not. A part of her wanted them to be, but…
She doubted explaining things to Lyle one way or another would change much anyways. And it wasn’t something that a ‘mon who stole from others by trade needed to know anyways. The Fire-type’s concern seemed to fade away quickly, as his expression hardened and he looked away with a low grunt.
“Hrmph, if you’re still mad about last night, you can just say—”
“Lyle, it was a nightmare,” she insisted. “Just don’t worry about it. I’m… sure it’ll go away on its own.”
Irune bit her tongue after the last part of her statement as Lyle raised a brow at her. Why didn’t she just tell him not to worry about her dream? She herself didn’t believe that reassurance, and the way she’d said it couldn’t possibly have made it more obvious she was lying.
The Quilava’s expression confirmed her worries that he didn’t believe her, but even so, he turned away and seemed reluctant to press on further.
“Yeah, they always do,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like this entire journey’s been a bad dream.”
Something about him seemed hurt, even if he didn’t show it much. Was he still upset over everything that happened yesterday? From before then? Over what had happened to his friends? For a brief moment, Irune thought to interject, to insist that she didn’t mean for any of those things to happen.
“Nrgh…”
Irune turned and saw Kate and Dalton cradling their heads, obviously hung over from last night. Her eyes fell on Dalton’s splinted arm, and she couldn’t help but feel an uncomfortable chill at the sight.
It hadn’t even been three days together with this group, and already things were repeating themselves.
… Though why did she care so much if they were? They had joined forces as a matter of convenience. Each of the three had their own path to go if they managed to make it to the Divine Roost and put this nightmare behind them, and she had her own.
For everyone’s sake, it was for the best for them to stay at arm’s length from each other. She’d seen enough over the past year to know that not keeping distant would just end bitterly for everyone.
Like it did for the Balance Bandits.
Irune back to attention after a paw at her arm. A glance up revealed Lyle looking off and frowning annoyedly at Dalton and Kate as they staggered and shrank back from the morning sun. He lingered for a moment before turning back to the Axew with an impatient shake of his head.
“Hurry and pack your stuff up,” he said. “We shouldn’t assume that Graf Wellenhafen is far enough away from us to spend another night here. Let’s grab some supplies before the morning rush sets in and figure out where to go next after we get out of town.”
Lyle started off and Irune shuffled onto her feet to gather her belongings, still breathing tensely from her dream. The floor’s creaks carried on for a few paces, only to suddenly pause. The Axew turned and saw Quilava watching Dalton and Kate feebly lurch and slouch along after him in a visible daze and him flattening his ears.
… Right, they had to manage everything all while Kate and Dalton were hung over. Irune turned her head up to the Quilava and pawed at the back of her head with a nervous hem and haw.
“Er… we are going to do something about those two, right?”
The Quilava studied the hung-over Heliolisk and Sneasel for a moment, before he hung his head with a tired sigh.
“... I guess it wouldn’t be the end of the world to try and order some Persim Juice or something like that from the bar to try and get those two over the hill a bit faster.”
After stopping by the tavern and parting with a few loose Poké to pick up a pair of Persim Juices from a much less energetic Decidueye at the inn’s tavern, “Igel” checked out with the Flapple receptionist and led the rest of Team Forager through the inn’s entrance and into the morning daylight.
Lyle took a moment to blink back the morning light as his eyes adjusted to it and his surroundings. The square around the fountain started to fill in with stands and mats from the first merchants drifting in for the day to ply their wares and services—more than he’d have initially expected from a little village like this, but he supposed things would be busier the same week that the Autumn Festival started. No beggars, though. He wasn’t sure whether it was because the village was too little to support them or if they just hadn’t arrived yet due to the hour.
… Or they got run off like places like Port Reyn had done. Thankfully, they weren’t going to be sticking around town long enough to find out.
The Quilava reared up and sized up the surrounding square, and found that the buildings around it were a mix of half-timbered structures punctuated by the occasional one done in the style of its proprietor’s head like a visible Colorswap Consortium shop at one end. A couple of them even had stray walls visibly fashioned from filled-in ruins like the ones on their inn’s ground floor. At the far right end of the square, there was a wooden stage being set up, with a curious platform next to it consisting of an upper floor of shacks that was held up by what looked to be a concrete pillar.
For such a humble village, the place clearly had very old roots, since there certainly weren’t ruins from human times like these back in his hometown.
Lyle and his fellows passed a street that carried off for the river and caught a brief glance of morning twilight as a raft drifted past on its surface in the distance. He then turned his head off at the Bergfried on the hill and noted that the side facing town, there was a design painted onto it in a color that looked similar to army plates: four barbs forming a cross without a center, with four shards set off at angles that made the entire thing look almost like an eight-pointed star. Some local nobles’ heraldic symbol or something like that, he guessed.
He couldn’t tell if they were supposed to be green or red, but either way, it was probably as good a sign as any that the local garrison punched above its weight. And that even without that Fähnlein of soldiers on their asses, that it really wasn’t a good idea to linger here in this village for too long.
“Ngah… keep it down, would ya?”
Lyle glanced behind him and saw Irune grimacing as Dalton and Kate lurched along after her. Guess that was a sign that those Persim Juices hadn’t done their jobs dulling their hangovers just yet.
He could already tell this was going to be a stressful morning.
“Look, we need to get out of here before things get too crowded,” the Quilava insisted. “Just hang in there a little longer, those Persim Juices you drank should help you feel better soon enough.”
He was answered by a pair of weak groans. It probably wasn’t a “yes”, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. The Quilava carried on with the rest of Team Forager for the right end of the square, all as Dalton and Kate flinched from every little noise along the way, such as the rattle of a passing wagon or the Salazzle in front of an apothecary in the background hailing a Hydreigon Carrier coming to a stop with a cheerful “Took you long enough, Harvey!” in the background. Lyle briefly considered keeping an eye on the Carrier to see if he’d be safe to approach for a ride out of town, but he quickly thought better of it. From how expensive their last flight with Hermes was, even if it wasn’t tempting fate with getting shot out of the sky again, he wasn’t sure they could afford another one. To say nothing of how the Hydreigon looked like he had a habit of getting into fights, at least if the cross-shaped scar over the side-head Lyle could see was anything to go by.
Tak! Tak! Tak!
Though the real trouble came from the sound of pounding mallets from a wooden stage being assembled at the other end of the square—probably part of the local preparations for the Autumn Festival. Lyle wasn’t sure how putting it together was making such a racket, but the effect on Dalton and Kate went about as well as expected: with the two winced after each blow like those nails were being driven into their bodies.
Lyle sighed and turned his attention to some of the nearby stalls. He keenly paid attention to the different merchants setting up shop to check if any looked particularly inattentive, or if their shops would be easier to rip off once the square had larger crowds to get lost in. Between the room, the food and drink from the bar, and the mug Kate and Dalton ruined, he was out most of his share of loot from Moonturn Square. They’d even out their money again at a quieter time, but that chunk of change they’d burned through wasn’t going to smooth itself over on its own.
“Lyle? Are you seriously casing Pokémon to rob right now?”
Lyle blinked after hearing a low, unimpressed hiss. He glanced out the corner of his eyes where sure enough, there was Irune frowning up at him with narrowed eyes.
“I mean, what did you expect us to do? Sit on the side of the road and beg?” he whispered back. “That money we parted ways with at the inn could’ve helped us buy a decent amount of gear from one of those dungeon shops the Colorswap Consortium runs in a pinch, or to pay off a Gendarme if we got pulled over for questioning.”
“But we’ve been in town for all of a night!” the Axew whispered in protest. “How can we already be stealing things?!”
Lyle fell silent and looked away for a moment. Why was this kid’s whining getting under his hide so much?
… Right, it was because something about this conversation felt like ones he’d had in the past. Like ones with his parents, not long before they threw him out. Now, like then, there had only been bad choices to pick from. Something he’d tried to explain to them. As for why stealing from others was the best of them… he supposed that in a way, the reason for doing so back then wasn’t all that different, either.
“Because we don’t have a ton of options to work with. There’s still half of Varhyde ahead in our journey. The money and supplies we have right now wouldn’t get us there without eventually having to rip someone off,” Lyle snapped. “We don’t exactly have all the time in the world to do odd jobs for random villagers, so if you have a better idea of how to square that away before Lacan catches up with us, then I’m all ear-”
“There, that should be the last one.”
Lyle glanced further down the square. There, next to one of the lanes feeding into it, was a pair of guards attaching something to a cross-shaped scaffold that stood at the center of a small mound of… Grünhäuter plates?
The Quilava blinked and his teammates slowed and gaped over, the shapes of the objects starting to fill in and grow more distinct as they neared. At the base was a set of four metal tubes with scuffs and dings leaned up against the central scaffold—cannons from the looks of it. It wasn’t unheard of for local Gendarmen or the army to set up displays in towns during the Autumn Festival to show off their armaments to reassure the public and sucker drunks and idiots into enlisting, which probably explained a thing or two about a few posters with patriotic slogans on the nearby shopfronts. Fresh ones that hadn’t gone through their first rain or moon of apathetic neglect.
But how on earth did this little town have all of this to spare from its garrison? Were they all from that Bergfried up on the hill? Lyle trailed off in his thoughts and froze after the guards at the display cleared up in his vision:
It was that same Blaziken and Nidoqueen from the gates last night, just a bit more visibly tired and irritable. The Poison-type of the pair stopped and opened a container with a steaming liquid inside, as she pulled her ears back with an annoyed grunt.
“Um Himmels willen
Interjection expressing surprise, shock, or disbelief. In this context, usage is most analogous to “For crying out loud!”, lit. “For heaven’s will!”
₁, I can’t believe that the Ritter von Herbergau would bother shipping this back from Edialeigh,” the Nidoqueen fumed. “After all how much that ‘Operation Siegfried’ was talked about, you’d think that they’d have something more than this to show their home town for helping to capture a port!”Lyle briefly blinked at the Nidoqueen's grumblings. 'Herbergau
"Errberk Village", derived by phonetic corruption. A more faithful semantic translation would be "Hostel Village (by a River)"
₂'? Was that supposed to be this place's name in Hightongue or something?“I mean, they’re Ritter. You know how they are about taking loot. Not ‘honorable’ enough for them,” the Blaziken scoffed. “As if holding those scum’s ‘nobles’ for ransom is really so different.”
Lyle turned to his teammates and saw that they were similarly grimacing. A glance around quickly revealed why: they were completely out in the open for those two guards to see! Even so, the pair seemed distracted, and with the quickest way out of the square being the street next to the display… just walking past them was probably the fastest way of getting out of their line of sight.
Irune went up to his shoulder and tugged at him worriedly, leaning in and whispering in his ear.
“Lyle, what do we do here?” she asked. “Those two must remember us from last night. What if they ask us for a bribe? Or question us?”
“Nrgh… we got out from under them quick enough last night, didn’t we?” Kate asked. “It’d look more suspicious if we suddenly turned tail in front of them. Just keep calm and act natural while passing them.”
The Sneasel flinched as another pound rang out in the background and cupped her ears.
“Agh! Though let’s do it quickly,” she insisted. “This place sounds like a madhouse.”
Lyle sucked in a breath and braced himself. He didn’t like it, but even if she wasn’t in her best state of mind, it was hard to argue Kate’s point. If things blew up with these guards, at least they wouldn’t have to worry about running into the paws of others waiting around the square.
The Quilava continued along with his teammates as the Gendarmen continued putting together the display, when he realized something was strange about the Nidoqueen’s question. Why would anyone, much less Ritter, go to the trouble of sending army plates back from the frontlines overseas? Wouldn’t armor plates be needed more on battlefields than for a festival display?
He looked up as the Nidoqueen climbed down from the scaffolding, revealing a large set of armor tied to it, pitted with cuts and gouges that revealed a mail layer underneath that looked like it had been fashioned for the likes of a Kommo-o or a Dragonite. What on earth was up with that? Why display green plates that were obviously damaged like this? Wouldn’t it be bad for the villagers’ morale?
Unless it was his vision mixing things up and the plates were red ones and not from Varhyde’s army at all. The insignias on the armor on the display left no room for doubt: instead of the white Schild der Wirklichkeit one would expect on an army chest plate, there a black one that looked similar to it in design, but inverted.
A Schwert der Wunsche
Sword of Wishes/Desires
₃, a sigil associated with Edialeigh’s patron god. One who had cut down many a Varhyder through the ages to the point where some folktales spoke of him in dread as an ‘Endbringer’.He sure wasn’t expecting to see anything related to him right now.
Lyle felt a paw tugging at him and saw Dalton insistently prodding at him to move along. Right, now wasn’t a good time to get distracted. Lyle continued on with his teammates and tried to keep themselves inconspicuous. The entire time, Irune’s attention kept drifting over to the trophy pile.
The guards were now slipping scarves about the scaffold’s crossbars, ones fashioned from black cloth with blue and gold horizontal bands—ones that stood out much like bolts of lightning against a night sky. A few of them, including the one about the armor on the crossbars, had what looked like a red crystal at the top. Perhaps they were the Rothäuter equivalent of Stabsoffizier blues?
“They could’ve at least shipped one or two of them back so that way the villagers could chuck Tamato Berries at them or something, but no... that’s too good for their little hometown in Austor Provinz,” the Nidoqueen scoffed. “Or that ‘mon from the Hofstaat who was supposed to have been freed from captivity during that campaign! You’d think someone that high up in the nobility would be getting a hero’s welcome around the realm, but there’s just been silence after the initial news.”
“Tch, isn’t that just a rumor, Zieste?” the Blaziken asked. “Since the only reason I could think of for the court keeping something like that quiet would be if the ‘mon turned collaborator during captivity in a way that couldn’t be covered up. Or died on the trip back across the sea. Or both, really.”
“Look, I know what I heard, Tephros,” the Nidoqueen shot back. “Even if the way all the stories abruptly stopped was a little weird. At first I thought that they’d found the late Queen’s bones out there or something like that! Some of the stories were saying that it involved a potential heir!”
Lyle’s ears flickered briefly at the mention and he cast a sidelong glance at the pair of guards, dutifully making sure the two weren’t looking. Fortunately, they seemed more distracted with whatever rumors they’d been hearing about and weren’t paying particularly close attention away from the scaffold.
“You really should pay less attention to the rumor mill, Zieste,” the Blaziken scoffed. “Why would the King worry so much about an heir of all things considering the stories about the one he’s already got…?”
The Quilava’s nose wrinkled as he neared the end of the pile when he noticed a strange, metallic smell that made him tense up and followed Irune’s gaze at the trophy pile from the corner of his eye. A number of the plates in the mound were visibly damaged, and a couple sported dark stains against their fabric.
It was as good a sign as any that he was smelling blood.
Lyle shuddered briefly and darted down the alleyway with his companions. After casting a quick glance back to make sure he wasn’t being followed, he paused to catch his breath and looked back at Kate and Dalton as they nursed their splitting headaches.
“Argh… so what’s your brilliant plan now?” the Sneasel demanded. “How are we supposed to get loot or a ride if we’re just hiding in the shadows the entire time?”
Lyle propped himself onto his hindlegs and studied the surrounding alleyway, when a loud rattle at the far end revealed a cart pulled by a Dubwool passing. Right, Pullers in a hurry often tried to bypass marketplaces as they started to fill up. Assuming the four of them could get sneak past their attendants or come across a Puller that went without one, such Pokémon were the types who wouldn’t notice things missing from their wagons or carts right away.
“... We’ll try scouting the fringes of this marketplace for marks,” the Fire-type said. “I doubt those two chuckleheads from last night are the only guards in the square. They didn’t seem to recognize us, but I don’t want to leave anything to chance.”
The Quilava shook his head, and started slipping off for the side street as settled up against the corner to steal glances around it.
“The fewer of their friends that recognize us before we start stirring up trouble, the better.”
About an hour later, the Persim Juices from the inn had done their work and helped Kate and Dalton get over their hangovers enough to part an inattentive Eiscue from her coin purse, and a few Oran Berries off a passing wagon.
Well, mostly anyways. With the way they were still flinching from the loud, exasperated growls and clatter of wagon wheels slowing to a stop from just outside the back alley they were hiding in, they weren’t fully back to normal just yet.
“For gods’ sake, Ardun, I told you not to graze along the road after dark! This is what happens when you don’t see what you’re eating!”
Lyle motioned for his teammates to follow him, and they made their way up to a small rubbish heap wedged up against a wall under the shade of trees that towered over the surrounding buildings. Just past it, they could see the occasional fall leaves drifting to earth, along with their would-be marks standing next to a small, low-slung shack without windows: a fuming Bewear next to a wagon with a canvas canopy, who was unhitching a visibly ill-looking Bastiodon who was holding his tail curled in towards his body and fighting back a gag.
“L-Lay off me, Gloria!” the dinosaur whined. “I had to dip into my food budget this month to cover that axle that broke! I had to eat something!”
A quick look past the two revealed the shack had an open doorway with a cloth cut into strips covering it and a bundle of herbs hung over its entrance… Oh. So that was why the Bastiodon was in such a rush to be unhitched.
Lyle didn’t expect himself to have much sympathy for a ‘mon that looked just like the snarling Wilders they’d fought off in Primordial Woods yesterday, but the Bastiodon’s remark about having to forage to get by still made him wince. He himself had gotten sick from having to scrounge for scraps to eat in the past in particularly lean seasons, and gods were those miserable experiences. The Quilava shook his head and tried not to think too hard about the Bastiodon’s troubles, when he noticed Dalton giving him a wary look at him.
“... Are you sure we should be stealing from them, Lyle?” he asked. “They sound like they’re a bit tight on money. We’d probably get more stealing from a mark who’s better off and they’d be able to afford the hit better, too.”
Lyle hesitated briefly, when his eyes turned back at the Bewear and the Bastiodon, and then at their wagon. With how shabby it looked, the two really weren’t doing well, especially the Bastiodon. Why, in his present state, the Steel-type looked like he was struggling not to paint the path with those plants he’d eaten.
“Look, whatever you ate couldn’t have been that bad, since you’re still alive,” the Bewear sighed. “Just get it out of your system and we’ll take it easy for a bit. I just hope you didn’t eat something like buttercups since otherwise that’s going to be a real mess afterwards.”
The Steel-type let out a whimpering “B-Buttercups?” when he flinched and curled in on his stomach. The Bastiodon’s eyes widened, before he hurriedly limped past the entrance. Lyle was thankful that he couldn’t hear what was going on past the doorway, or smell it for that matter. There were only so many ways that Puller was going to get his last meal out of his body, and thinking too hard about any of them made his own empty stomach feel queasy.
He and his teammates watched and waited for an opening to sneak past the Bewear guard. The Normal-type fortunately was more preoccupied with keeping an eye on the low-slung shack. She started to fidget her tail impatiently, and when she began to steal glances around her surroundings, Lyle turned his head back to his teammates.
“... I think we can let ‘em off easy,” he insisted. “We’ll just take the Bewear’s spare gear and move on.”
Kate rolled her eyes with a grumbling “ugh, fine” at his insistence, while Irune was still frowning at him. The Quilava pinned his ears back, briefly scowling at the Axew before turning his attention back to the wagon and keenly watching the Bewear.
“Irune, I get that you’d prefer we dealt with this some other way, but we can’t afford to be picky right now. We’re running low on money and supplies for our journey and we’re not exactly close to the end of it,” Lyle insisted. “If you have a better idea of how to handle things and get out of town without leaving a trail behind for Lacan to pick up, speak up or shut up.”
Irune faltered and visibly hesitated after the demand. He doubted he’d get her to openly agree with things, but he was pretty sure he’d gotten his point across. Lyle let out a small harrumph in reply, before diverting his attention back to the wagon and its guarding Bewear.
“Thought so,” he scoffed. “Besides, losing a few Seeds and Wands shouldn’t keep those two from being able to pull stuff around. They’re clearly not pushovers, and it’s better that we put that gear to use against Wilders or Hunters in a Mystery Dungeon than have them use them against other ‘mons like us.”
That… was less reassuring than it’d sounded in his head, but it’d have to do. Lyle learned long ago that it didn’t do any good to dwell on his marks. Most of the time, it just put butterflies in his stomach or threw himself off from grabbing what he needed and getting out quickly.
There would be time to feel guilty about things later. After they were in less dire straits.
Lyle’s ears flicked at the sound of an annoyed huff, and he looked up right as the Bewear‘s patience wore out while standing guard over the wagon. The Normal-type scanned her surroundings for a moment, before she drifted past the shack’s doorway herself. At once, Lyle motioned to his companions and darted across the shaded street, jumping up into the wagon with a Quick Attack to zip him along. He came to a stop amid crates with chalky powder dribbling out of small holes. Finished Gummi Mix from the smell of things. If the Foehn Gang or the Terra Tyrants were still around, it’d have been decent loot to fence with how quickly it’d sell with no questions asked…
No, it was best not to think about such things. He needed to find whatever chest two kept their battle gear in. A glance back revealed Kate clambering up as Dalton came over and eyed the lip of the wagon before stopping. The Heliolisk let his eyes drift down to his splinted arm and then shook his head and spoke up with an uneasy mutter.
“Gods, did this injury come at a bad time,” he said.
“Oi, it’s not as if you can’t do anything right now,” Kate piped. “We need someone to let us know when those two are coming back. A broken arm shouldn’t keep you from acting as a lookout.”
Dalton hesitated and sighed before he stepped aside from the tailgate. Lyle quirked a brow, when he saw a pair of small hands at the top and heard Irune grunt and scrape against the wood of the wagon as she tried to clamber aboard.
Everyone froze briefly from the noise before Dalton hurriedly stepped in and helped her over the tailgate with his good arm. Guess Irune had come around to his argument earlier. As Irune steadied herself in the wagon, the faint scent of Oran berries that led him and his teammates towards a narrow but deep gap between the crates where the canvas wasn’t fully attached. There, on the left, was a small red chest with a padlock over it. Too poorly hidden to be a cashbox, so it must’ve been where the Puller and his bodyguard kept their stuff.
He looked down at the padlock and held it in his paws, before turning to Kate and then to Irune. They probably had a way of making the metal brittle enough to be broken open, but…
“Irune, I don’t suppose your tusks can take apart a lock, can they?” the Quilava asked. He was met by an unamused stare from her and Kate, which prompted him to fold his ears back with a disappointed sigh..
“... Right, guess I should’ve expected as much,” he said. “If Alvin was still here, I’d just ask him to break it after Kate and I made the metal brittle… but…”
Lyle trailed off mid-sentence as his mind drifted back to his Marowak companion and him getting beaten by the guards in Moonturn Square. The Quilava hung his head and a sinking feeling came over the pit of his stomach. Why on earth did he think about that right now? The stoat drooped briefly as thoughts of the way they’d last parted kept lingering. Along with guilty wonderings of if Irune was right and there was something they could’ve done for him…
“And make a racket for anyone on the street to hear? Nah, we’ve got a better way of getting through a cheap lock like that.”
Lyle looked past his shoulder as Kate shuffled up, with her right claw pulling a metal spike from her satchel. An Iron Thorn? But how was that supposed to help? The Sneasel crouched and slid the tip of the spike into the padlock’s opening, as Lyle and Irune both gaped and blinked at her.
“Wait, what are you doing with the lock?” Irune asked.
“Picking it, obviously,” the Sneasel replied.
Lyle quirked an ear. He’d heard of Kate getting out of some improbable situations when they were back in the Foehn Gang together, like the time she’d managed to somehow smooth talk a haul of seized loot out of a garrison of Gendarmen, but this was definitely new. It also seemed to catch Dalton off-guard from his end of the wagon, as he poked his head past the tailgate and blinked at the Sneasel.
“You never mentioned that you knew how to pick locks,” he said. “When did you learn to do that?”
“Oh come on, it’s not that rare of a skill among Outlaws, is it? I learned how to do it about a year after I joined the Mistral Marauders,” she said. “I wouldn’t call myself an expert lockpick, but you don’t need to be one for a padlock like this. Most ones flimsy enough to get past by making their metal brittle are usually cheap pieces of crap that have a single pin keeping the entire lock in place. Stick something narrow and hard in the keyhole and push it up…”
A soft click rang out as the lock suddenly jolted open. Lyle stared blankly as Irune blinked incredulously, watching slack-jawed as the Sneasel pulled the lock off with a quiet smirk.
“And it’ll open up for you quietly,” she said. “With nobody the wiser.”
He’d have to keep Kate’s skill in mind for the future, but for now, they had other priorities to take care of: like getting their loot and getting out before that Bewear came back.
Lyle pushed the chest open and at once was greeted by a small bundle of Oran Berries along with various Orbs and Seeds inside. Lyle and his teammates hurriedly cleared out the chest by shoveling whatever they could grab into their bags to sort out later, Irune more hesitantly than either him or Kate. After clearing out what they could, Kate quietly clamped the chest shut and slipped the padlock back over it.
Good enough, they could take stock of what they’d nabbed in a safer place.
The three turned for the tailgate and hurriedly slunk over. Right at the tailgate’s lip, Lyle stiffened up at the sound of approaching chatter and fallen leaves being crunched underfoot as Dalton’s eyes widened from past the wagon. The Heliolisk hurriedly ducked underneath the wagon as he audibly fought back a yelp.
Lyle felt a chill run down his pelt and startled embers flickered from his vents. The message was clear: they weren’t alone right now.
Kate beelined for the right corner by the tailgate and ducked up behind it while Lyle pulled Irune in by the left. None of them dared to so much as breathe, as they saw the Bastiodon and Bewear return with a low grumble.
“Well, at least now we know you that didn’t eat buttercups,” the Bewear sighed. “Took you long enough. I was starting to think you were going to spend all day in there!”
“Urgh… like we’ve never run unexpectedly late because of you before,” the Bastiodon groaned. “Look, let’s just see if that apothecary in the square has anything that’ll help me feel less crap and hit the road again.”
Lyle blanched and struggled to fight back fire from his vents. These two were already going to leave? But why? And how were they supposed to get off the wagon without either of them noticing? The Bewear’s shadow along with the one of the Bastiodon’s head crest through the wagon’s canvas stopped and turned around as the Normal-type seemed to also be taken aback by the Puller’s proposition, as the Bewear’s folded her arms and let out a sharp harrumph.
“Ardun, you’ve got food poisoning right now. Are you even going to be able to make it past the first road marker without needing to pull over again?” the Bewear asked. “We should rest while we’re here. We can still make up the time if we stick to a quicker pace after you’re feeling a bit better.”
Lyle blinked at the pair’s conversation. Now that he thought of it, it did seem a bit weird that a ‘mon that sounded as sick as the Bastiodon did would be so eager to leave. But even through the canvas, something about the dinosaur’s gait seemed tense and on-edge. The silhouette of the Puller’s head turned about uneasily, before the Steel-type’s shadow leaned in on the Bewear’s and began to speak up in a low tone.
“Because fall levies for the army have been going out,” the Bastiodon said. “Some of the Carriers at our last stop were saying that a Fähnlein had been going from town to town out in the northeast.”
… Wait a minute, Fähnlein in the northeast…? That had to be the same one that shot them down! So they did manage to put some distance between Lacan and themselves!
Lyle caught himself and flicked his ears with a puzzled frown. Something wasn’t adding up here. If the Bastiodon had been hearing rumors of Lacan and his troops, why was he this worried when they were still so far out?
“Ardun, that’s not even in this Provinz-” the Bewear started, only to pause and breathe in sharply with a frustrated sigh. “Look, did any of the stories you heard about this Fähnlein involve them going around and pressing conscripts?”
A pause followed, along with the sound of heavy feet pawing at the dirt.
“Well… no…”
“So then why are you wetting yourself like a little hatchling over them?” the Bewear demanded.
Lyle turned his attention to the back of the wagon as a silence hung in the air. If they could just get out quietly while the two were distracted… The Quilava looked over to Kate as she motioned with her paws and hopped the tailgate, coming to a stop on the ground.
“This is as good a sign as any that we should get lost,” the Sneasel whispered. “Come on, let’s get-”
“If the army was going to spring a surprise levy on a town, they wouldn’t send an entire Fähnlein for it,” the Bewear insisted. “Wouldn’t they logically just send a few soldiers and have the local guards do the dirty work of handing them out?”
“Because with the stories I’ve heard coming off the frontline this year, I don’t want to take any chances,” the Bastiodon insisted. “Especially when those Carriers said that they spotted that Fähnlein around Toya Square just yesterday.”
Lyle stiffened up and blinked. Maybe getting shot out of the sky had been a blessing in disguise. If Hermes made it to Toya Square, Lacan and his soldiers would’ve caught up later that day and they’d have to try and outrun him through the countryside!
“... Okay, that’s quite a jump in a single day, but that’s still not exactly close to us,” the Bewear murmured. “Where exactly are you going with this?”
“I overheard a few of the local Gendarmen say that strange fliers from the army came in overnight from Toya Square before moving on in a hurry,” he insisted. “They’re probably scouts or something, and that means that Fähnlein is planning on coming this way.”
Lyle felt startled fire start to simmer in his vents and looked over at his teammates. Kate had visibly stiffened up and Irune’s eyes had shrunk to startled pins. Those soldiers couldn’t possibly have known that they’d go this way from Primordial Woods! How on earth could they have possibly expected that?!
… Except, they themselves were only here because of a map of Mystery Dungeons in that cheap handbook they stole. If the army had sent hundreds of soldiers after a single Axew, what were the odds they’d have been too cheap to give Lacan or any of his underlings similar maps of their own?
Lyle felt his breaths come shorter and shallower as he subconsciously stole glances for the back of the wagon. Screw waiting until the afternoon, they needed to get out of this town. For all he knew those ‘scouts’ were already going around asking questions like that Corvisquire did back in Moonturn Square!
“H-Huh?! B-But how would Lacan-?!”
Lyle heard the Pokémon outside the wagon jolt back with a start and watched as the shadows through the canvas abruptly shrank and moved. Irune reflexively clamped her mouth shut and froze as she realized the two’d overheard her, but the damage was done. In a flash, the Bastiodon poked his head in, where there was a brief moment of surprise before he narrowed his eyes into a harsh glare.
“Hey! What do you three think you’re doing in there?!”
Götterblut, just what they needed now of all times.
Author’s Notes:
Words and Phrases:
1. Um Himmels willen - Interjection expressing surprise, shock, or disbelief. In this context, usage is most analogous to “For crying out loud!”, lit. “For heaven’s will!”
2. Herbergau - "Errberk Village", derived by phonetic corruption. A more faithful semantic translation would be "Hostel Village (by a River)"
3. Schwert der Wunsche - "Sword of Wishes/Desires"
Teaser Text:
Toya Square, 18. Herbstmond, 1027 n. d. B.
To whom it may concern,
On behalf of Graf Lacan von Wellenhafen and His Majesty King Siegmund von Wahrheit, I wish to solicit your aid in searching for Pokemon of interest for His Majesty and his armed forces. Their descriptions, last known whereabouts, and known aliases have been included with the attached wanted posters. See to it that they are copied and distributed as soon as possible.
Apprehend anyone who matches the included descriptions alive, in particular theᵃ Axew. That point cannot be stressed enough, since the balance of victory for the army’s present campaigns against the Kingdom of Edialeigh potentially hinges on her well-being, with potentially existential implications for the realm were something to happen to her.
As such Graf von Wellenhafen and His Majesty expect these solicitations to be acted on accordingly to the utmost of your abilities. The treasury of His Majesty will make whole any bounties that need to be paid, including for bounties paid out for cases of mistaken identity. For our present mission, it would be less injurious to incur such public embarrassments and quietly make restitution later than to risk these Pokemon slipping away from your Gendarmen second-guessing themselves.
I wish I could be more frank about our circumstances, but duty compels me to remain circumspect. Just know that for your ranks, apprehending these four could be the most important task they have ever received.
Important enough that it could determine the future of this land that we call ‘Varhyde’.
- Urgent dispatch from Ritterin von Herbergau, Sophia Krarmors relayed to the Grafschaft Sheriffs of Austorᵇ Provinz
a. In official German-language media, 'das' is always used as the definite article for Pokémon. Here, the feminine definite article 'die' is used to imply the subject's gender.
b. Derived by corruption and truncation. In a more faithful semantic translation, this would be something along the lines of "East Gate Steppe / Prairie"
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