Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Quenched Torch

Chapter 34: Highway Robbery

"Aight, first real dungeon dive. Hoo, mon," Mavy said quietly to himself as he zigzagged after us. Squinting in the morning sunlight, Rye and I looked back towards him.

"You nervous?" Rye asked. Mavy snorted.

"Course not. Pa drilled me on the basics, I'd say I'm ready. Besides, I'm four, I'm basically an adult. So long as Ben here picks out a decent one, I'll be fine," he said. I gave him a look over my shoulder.

"Is Beck," I said.

"Right, yeah, my bad," Mavy replied. As we tiredly hobbled towards the boards, I couldn't help but feel nervous about the day to come. Going into a dungeon without my scalchop was an intimidating prospect at best, and my performance against Arden yesterday didn't exactly reassure me.

'You've had a moon and this is all you can pull off, he said. Yeah, thanks for the motivation, sir.

...I'm probably gonna die.'

With this in mind, I clenched my teeth as Mavy jumped in place impatiently.

"Come on, they're probably gonna run out if we don't hurry!" he demanded. Rye shot him a confused look.

"Huh? What do you mean 'run out?'" he asked.

"I mean, there's only so many jobs on listing, right?" Mavy asked. Rye stared at him as if he had just proclaimed the earth was a cube.

"...I, uh, I don't think that's, er, gonna be a-an issue," he soon said.

"What do you..." Mavy began before we turned the corner, bringing the boards' plaza into sight. Seeing the hundreds of jobs tacked onto the mission board alone, Mavy stumbled back a bit.

"Oh," he simply said. As he took a moment to look around at the apparently alien sights, Rye and I stepped up to the boards as per usual.

"Well, I lost that bet last night, so, uh, y-you pick, I guess. Tear one off and I'll read it for you," the Treecko said. At a loss, I stared at the papers fluttering in the light breeze. Without a bit of training to make up for my lost weapon, I wasn't exactly confident in tackling any of these.

'Well, Beck, which pile of crap looks the most appetizing?'

I made ready to pull one of the notices off at random, though I was suddenly pushed aside by a passing Pokemon.

"Agh! Hey!" I demanded angrily. The offending Delcatty stopped to look over her shoulder.

"Sorry. I was just leaving. Certain someone couldn't be bothered to do community service, so yeah, ain't that nice," she said. As she huffed and tromped off, an idea popped up in my head.

'Wait, if I can choose what we're doing today...'

"Hey!" I called after her. "I, eh, shaa-waa..."

As Delcatty watched me confusedly, I let out a quiet cry of frustration while Rye stepped up beside me.

"What are you... uh, you want to do this, or...?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. Rye nodded and looked up at Delcatty prompting her to straighten up.

"Okay, uhm... we need someone to go and help Alakazam out with a shipment coming in. It means orbs for him and the Kecleons, and by extension the Guild, so this is important, to say the least," she said.

"Mr. Alakazam? Okay, but wh-what about our job today?" Rye asked, gesturing to the board.

"I'm one of the Guildmaster's assistants, he'll understand," Delcatty replied. As Rye hung his head in thought, Mavy finally caught up to us.