Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Quenched Torch

Chapter 51: Taking the Plunge

The hallway before us seemed to stretch on forever, its downward slope only leading us into more darkness ahead. Silence hung in the air as we walked on, no feral noises or background scraping there to join the echoes of our footsteps. Though a welcome change from what we'd seen previously, the horrified anticipation was still there, as evident by the general jumpiness from all three of us. My guess was that we wouldn't be getting over that last floor, not while we were still down here. For now, though, it looked like we had a lot of tunnel ahead, and by extension, some time to kill.

"So," Mavy said to break the silence, "wut's the plan 'ere? D-did we just... y'know, head into this thing without a gameplan?"

"N-no, no, we have a plan. It's... uh, r-remember what Mr. Arcanine said? I-if this is why we're here, uh, w-we better see it through. R-right, Beck?" Rye asked.

"Yeah," I nodded, though Mavy didn't seem entirely convinced, his tail bristling as he zigzagged along.

"Y'all got a death wish, don't you? We all saw that last floor, now you gon go deeper?" he asked. Rye didn't answer for a moment, biting his lip.

"I-I didn't want to just... make Beck go alone, not after that. Uh, s-so why didn't you stay if...?" he asked. Mavy had his own moment of hesitation.

"...well... wut you said. Don't want nothin' to do with this, but really didn't want y'all goin' at it alone. Y'know, just in case," he admitted, though he quickly gave us a steely Look. "Y'all e'er bring that up again, ah'll throw ya back in here."

For the first time in a while, I let myself smirk a bit as I glanced back at the Zigzagoon.

"Aw, Maffy," I smiled.

"Naw, don't gimme that. Can't have y'all dyin' on me, don't got nowhere else ah wanna be," Mavy retorted as I gave him a nudge. Rye only added with a quick quiet chuckle, grasping the lantern tight as he kept peering ahead. Mavy grimacing behind us, I watched the occasional crystal glitter on the wall as I flexed my aching feet, remaining quiet for a moment before the silence broke again.

"Really, though. Wut's the plan?" Mavy asked. Rye's tail seemed to droop a bit as we both looked at him, the Treecko biting his lip.

"W-well, uh... s-so let's assume there's someone waiting, right? Uh, I-I don't think they'd make this path, you know, that bad. A-at least not worse than that floor, like, if they wanna talk like Mr. Arcanine said, it's gotta be passable, right?" he proposed. "That's, uh, what I'm hoping, at least. I-if the— i-it does get too rough, there's still the Escape orb in the bag, we can get some help a-and come back down."

The two of us considered his logic for a bit before nodding.

"Shaa," I cried my approval.

"Yeah, makes sense. Good on ya, Rye, thinkin' straight 'nuff to rope me into this for once," Mavy said. The Treecko cracked his own little smile as he peered ahead. As he did, his tail twitched, which I took as a sign that something had changed in his view.

Sure enough, the light ahead showed that the tunnel finally seemed to be coming to an end, opening up into a new cavern. As we approached, that familiar dreadful chill hit me, letting me know that we had more dungeon to see to. This one looked straightforward enough, thankfully, though the three of us just nervously stood at the entrance for a moment, hesitating and watching each other to see who would go first.

"...you know, we could just stop 'n rest here for a moment, eat somethin' 'fore we barge on into another one o' these things," Mavy suggested.

All it took was one quick recount of the floors past for us to agree and hurry away from the cave's exit.