"Wait, you're Yancy?" Delphox stared wide-eyed. "The one that was a... what was it, a Burning Bug?"
"Oh my goodness, that little bug actually evolved into this?" Oddish was so shocked it nearly leapt off the ground. "You look so cool after evolving! And you seem incredibly strong. No wonder you could beat that monster!"
"She actually took down a Grovyle...!"
The surrounding NPCs looked at her in a completely different light, their earlier sympathy replaced by open admiration. Listening to the crowd shower her with praise, Yancy felt a wave of pure delight wash over her.
The fatigue she had built up during the battle melted away entirely, and her confidence soared. She spun around proudly, basking in a chorus of gasps, then flew off toward the Appraisal Shop, leaving behind a crowd still buzzing with chatter.
At the Appraisal Shop, Yancy handed the fragments over to the appraiser. He was a Chansey wearing thick glasses, and he peered at the pieces through a magnifying glass for a long while before delivering a conclusion that left Yancy mildly disappointed.
"Hmm... These look ancient, but they're actually just ordinary ancient metal. The hardness is a little above average stone, but there are no special properties to speak of." The Chansey pushed his glasses up and said.
[I knew it! Non-luck confirmed!]
[Got excited for nothing. I always said rare artifacts don't just drop like that.]
[This appraiser is useless. Get a better one!]
[Eh, high hardness is still a plus. Good for bashing things.]
[lmaooo look at the streamer's face just now]
Yancy sighed and tucked the appraised fragments into her bag. She had known all along that every appraisal couldn't turn up something extraordinary, but a small pang of disappointment lingered all the same.
Then she reminded herself: the experience she had racked up in the maze and all those rare materials had already made the trip more than worthwhile. With that, she let it go.
She was about to head to the market district to stock up on recovery items. The battle had drained her considerably, and while Dragonair and Wartortle had recovered, she still needed to replenish her backup potions.
Just then, a Chatot wearing a courier bag came zipping through the air at breakneck speed, nearly clipping Yancy's wing.
"Urgent delivery! Urgent delivery! For Yancy!" The Chatot dropped an envelope sealed with wax directly in front of her, then darted off again before Yancy could even say thank you, squawking "So many letters left to deliver!"
Yancy used an antenna to peel the envelope open, and the moment she unfolded the letter inside, her pupils contracted.
It was an exceptionally rare S-Rank Named Commission.
[Holy crap, an S-Rank Named?!]
[She's about to take off!]
[Golden Labyrinth? That sounds expensive just from the name.]
[That wax seal though, very fancy.]
[Everyone who said those fragments were trash can come out now. This is the big quest setup!]
The commission was brief in its description but demanding in its conditions: the client was anonymous, yet specifically required that "Yancy's Rescue Team" travel to the deepest point of the first floor of the Golden Labyrinth and retrieve an item called the "Ancient Gear Fragment."
"The Golden Labyrinth?" The guild receptionist, a plump Wigglytuff, leaned over to read the letter, and her face went pale on the spot, her usual rosy complexion draining white. "Yancy, are you crazy? The Golden Labyrinth is a forbidden zone!"
Wigglytuff's voice carried, and it drew the attention of everyone nearby. The NPCs who heard the name crowded around with warnings: "That place has an incredibly complex layout, riddled with lethal traps everywhere. One wrong step and you're done!" said a seasoned Machamp, furrowing his brow.
"I once went as far as the outer perimeter. Just those moving walls alone were a nightmare."
"On top of that, the wild Pokemon inside are extremely high-level. Veteran rescue teams with loads of experience don't dare go deep, and you've only just formed your team..." Another Alakazam shook his head, turning a spoon over in his hand.
"Your strength is genuinely impressive, but still... it's far too dangerous. Think it over properly." "There's also supposedly some kind of curse in there. Very few Pokemon make it out without taking serious damage."
[Flag planted! Flag planted!]
[People who say things like that always end up eating their words.]
[This streamer never backs down. She's definitely going.]
[Sounds like there's a big boss in this dungeon.]
Yancy looked down at the scorching letter in her hands, her mind running through a different set of calculations. Reading the commission carefully, she noticed the objective was only to "find the item at the deepest point of the first floor."
There was no requirement to go dozens of floors underground. If it was just the first floor, surely it wouldn't be that terrifying? And on top of that, everyone had just acknowledged her strength, and the confidence that came with evolving into Volcarona was still fresh and bright inside her.
This felt like a perfect opportunity to prove herself and earn a substantial reward. An S-Rank commission's payout would certainly be generous enough to give the whole team a proper equipment upgrade.
"What's there to be afraid of," said Yancy, tucking the letter away. She turned to the gathered crowd with a confident sweep of her wings.
"If they named me specifically, that means I have what it takes. Besides, I want to see for myself what this so-called forbidden zone is really made of."
Ignoring the crowd's concern, Yancy signed her name on the commission form, then spun around and called out to her companions: "Dragonair, Wartortle, let's move!"
Wartortle was a little frightened, but seeing how confident her captain was, she pumped her small claws in the air all the same. "Kami!" Dragonair gave a quiet nod, his gaze as steady as ever, as though no danger in the world could leave a mark on him.
[Go go go!]
[Our headstrong streamer, ready to send herself to... wait, no, ready to claim first blood!]
[Looking at this team composition, I actually think they can do it.]
[Dragonair: It's fine. I'll handle it.]
[S-Rank quest. Sitting here waiting for the loot rolls.]
The entrance to the Golden Labyrinth lay hidden deep inside a dense forest. A crumbling stone stele stood at the threshold, carved with a skull, radiating a grim and eerie air.
The moment they stepped inside, a suffocating pressure closed in around them.
The Golden Labyrinth, true to its name, was not built from gold but from ancient rock that gleamed with a dim, tarnished golden light. These stones carried a weighty sense of history.
The walls were blanketed in moss, and a thick purple mist hung in the air, cutting visibility down to almost nothing, leaving an inexplicable feeling of constriction in the chest.
Yancy flew at the front, her Volcarona flames burning somewhat faint within the mist, their light barely reaching a few meters in any direction. She kept herself in a constant state of alertness, dreading whatever might come lunging out at any moment.
[The background music just went full dungeon.]
[This fog has serious horror game energy.]
[Visibility this bad? How are they supposed to fight in here?]
[Streamer, turn on night vision... oh right, just breathe fire instead?]
"Everyone stay sharp. The mist in here messes with your vision," Yancy said. Her voice bounced through the empty corridor, making it sound unsettlingly hollow.
They had barely gone any distance into the labyrinth when Wartortle's nerves started to show. She pulled her neck in and murmured, "Captain, I heard the terrain on every floor here is randomized. It's completely unpredictable. Maybe we should hug the walls? It's harder to get lost that way."
"It's fine. I've got this." Dragonair, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke. His tone was as cool as always, and his words were few, but the mystical water-drop gem on his body emitted a soft glow that functioned like a small radar, steering the team away from one hidden trap after another.
Sure enough, at the next corner, Dragonair stopped abruptly. His tail swayed gently, signaling danger on the left. Yancy reacted immediately, guiding the team to press right.
[Dragonair MVP!]
[That item is so useful!]
[Thank goodness for Dragonair. Would've been a disaster without him.]
[So this is what a Legendary brings to the table?]
[If they'd gone left just now, they probably would've gotten wrecked by a trap lol]
As if on cue, a group of Machamp burst from the left wall, swinging their fists with full force into exactly where the team had just been standing, hammering a row of craters into the floor.
"That was close!" Wartortle stuck out her tongue, still shaking.
It was a good thing they had been warned in advance. Thanks to Dragonair's guidance, the team navigated through several waves of wild Pokemon encounters without any serious incident and finally reached the deepest point of the first floor.
What awaited them was a vast underground ruin. The surrounding walls were engraved with elaborate patterns, and shattered stone pillars lay scattered across the floor. At the center of the ruins stood an ancient altar.
The altar was covered in weathered murals. Despite the erosion of countless years, the images were still legible.
Yancy drifted closer and studied them, discovering that every scene depicted Pokemon evolution: Magikarp leaping through the dragon's gate to become Gyarados, Metapod splitting its cocoon to spread its wings, Eevee branching into its many different evolved forms.
Each image was strikingly vivid, as though every stroke were narrating a story of life transformed.
"These murals..." Yancy traced the carvings with her gaze. "They all seem to be about evolution. Could this altar have been built to guide evolution?"
[Looks like it's giving information related to evolution?]
[Foreshadowing +1.]
[Can someone use this to evolve my Magikarp?]
[The artwork is genuinely beautiful. The development team put real love into this.]
[Maybe you can learn new moves here?]
Wartortle nodded, her large eyes shimmering, as if she felt an instinctive sense of closeness to this place. "Huh... I can feel something here, a really unusual kind of energy. It's warm, kind of like... like when you evolved just now, Captain."
Dragonair drifted over as well and stared at a hollow carved into the center of the altar, expression thoughtful.
Just as Yancy was about to investigate the altar further, hoping to trigger a mechanism or locate the "Ancient Gear Fragment," a green shadow suddenly dropped from above the ruins, landing in front of the altar with a mocking laugh.
"You again?" Yancy took a sharp step back, the flames on her wings flaring violently higher.
A slender green figure stood before her.
It had only flashed for an instant, but sharp-eyed viewers caught it immediately.
[Grovyle?]
[This guy... was he watching from up there the whole time? So he's been following them?]
[He's back!]
[That Houndoom and Ursaring from earlier were probably sent by him, right? Are we seriously going another round?]
The figure straightened slowly. It was the Grovyle they had encountered back in the Lava Gear Labyrinth, but this time it carried a very different air.
If last time it had been pure arrogance, this time it was something deeper and colder. In one hand it casually tossed a golden fragment that radiated an ancient aura.
"Didn't think you'd track this place down so quickly," said the Grovyle, lips curling into a cold smile. "Looks like the lesson last time wasn't thorough enough."
"You again?" Yancy pulled back cautiously, Volcarona retreating a step.
The slender green figure stepped out from the shadows fully. It was the same Grovyle from their brief encounter in the Lava Gear Labyrinth, but this time its presence was entirely different.
Where last time it had been straightforwardly brash, now there was something deep and glacial about it. At some point, a massive Pelipper had appeared beside it.
The Pelipper's eyes were fierce, a trail of drool hanging from its beak, and its wings bore several wounds that had not yet healed, marking it unmistakably as a seasoned fighter with a violent history.
The Grovyle stood blocking the altar. Those narrow eyes glinted with calculation, as if it had anticipated Yancy's arrival all along.
"A little bug who just grew its wings, daring to barge into a place like this?" The Grovyle's voice was rough and grating, its lips pulling back into a sneer of contempt, as though watching a fool who had no sense of her own limits. "You win one fight and think you can strut around here? This is no playground."
Yancy fired back without flinching, masking the wariness she felt about the Pelipper. There was no way she would concede the verbal exchange.
She snapped her wings open sharply, sending shimmering scales and a wave of heat surging toward her opponent.
"I beat you once before and I can do it again. I'm here for the fragment. Step aside if you know what's good for you!"
"The fragment?" The Grovyle looked at her as if she had said something hilarious, then reached slowly into its coat and produced the golden fragment, ancient energy radiating off it, and gave it a lazy toss in the air. "You mean this?"
Yancy froze. Her pupils contracted sharply. The mission target had been on it this whole time.
"Want it?" The Grovyle closed its fist around the fragment, and its gaze turned razor-sharp. "Then let's see if you can survive to take it!"
The words were barely out before the battle erupted.
This time the Grovyle's strategy was sharply targeted, clearly the product of preparation. Rather than engaging directly, it stepped aside for the Pelipper, then gave the order: "Pelipper, teach this little bug a lesson. Surf!"
A cold dread shot straight through Yancy's mind.
Pelipper was a dual Water and Flying type. Yancy's current form, Volcarona, was Fire and Bug.
In terms of type matchups, she was at an absolute disadvantage.
This thing had been chosen specifically to counter her.
"Gaah!"
Pelipper let out a piercing cry and threw its enormous wings forward in a savage sweep.
The air around them seemed to be sucked dry in an instant, and then a colossal wall of water materialized from nothing, surging forward as a sky-swallowing wave with the force to obliterate everything in its path.
Before Yancy could even begin to recover from the impact of that torrent, Pelipper shuddered its wings again and Hurricane activated.
Howling wind laced with icy spray cut into Yancy like countless tiny blades. Volcarona's prized flame-wings, her greatest source of power, flickered and buckled in the raging storm, unable to hold any balance at all.
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones