Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: The Forest Temple (Ch3)

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Corrupted Forest Temple
B2F


	Out of breath and filled with panic, Skitty and Clefairy half-ran, half-fell down the stairs to the next floor, landing unsteadily on their feet on the dirt floor of the small room that the stairs led to. They glanced around for any enemies, but luckily, the room was empty. Moments later, Cyndaquil rolled down the stairs and landed heavily between them. He grunted in pain, and lay still on the ground. Skitty walked over and tapped him on the back with a paw.

	“You doing okay?” she asked.

	“Why are we still here?” he moaned. “Just to suffer?”

	“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Skitty said. She opened her bag and gave an Oran Berry to Cyndaquil. The Fire-type ate it greedily, recovering his strength and standing up again.

	“We’re sure lucky the stairs were in the very next room,” Clefairy said. “I don’t think we could have lasted much longer, with those wild Pokémon chasing us.”

	“If only someone hadn’t used Discharge and forced us to run like that,” Cyndaquil muttered.

	“Hey, Metronome summons a random move,” Skitty noted. “She couldn’t choose what it would do.”

	“Still… I can’t believe Metronome let you use Discharge, Clefairy. That’s usually a good move, except when all the Pokémon in the room are paralyzed by a Petrify Orb. Then using it just undoes the Orb’s effects.”

	Clefairy looked down at the ground, and her ears drooped. “I… I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.”

	“I know,” said Skitty reassuringly. “You helped us out back there, even though you ended up causing trouble in the end. Without you, I would’ve had a lot more trouble fighting those Pokémon. Having a third Pokémon with us is a real benefit.”

	“Until she uses Discharge on a room of petrified Pokémon and causes them all to attack us,” said Cyndaquil under his breath.

	“Hey, if she hadn’t done that, we would’ve both fainted,” Skitty snapped at her partner, her big ears having heard his words. “And that would’ve been even worse considering we only packed two Reviver Seeds. If we both were knocked out and had to use them to get revived there, we wouldn’t have any other chances. One more fainting and all of us would get kicked out of the dungeon.”

	Cyndaquil and Skitty stared at each other for a few seconds, until the Fire-type finally lowered his gaze and sighed. “You’re right. I’m just upset about what happened there.” He turned to his Watcher companion, and gave her a weak smile. “I’m sorry, Clefairy. I didn’t mean to insult you or anything. Let’s just put it behind us for now, and focus on making it through the rest of this dungeon. We’re on the next floor down, but who knows how much farther we have to go?”

	“Only one way to find out,” said Skitty. “Follow me.”

	She went towards one of the two corridors in the room, and her companions fell in behind her. The corridor made a right turn and opened into a room occupied by an Exeggutor, who was busy observing a small blue orb on the ground. Cyndaquil stepped past Skitty and quickly fired a Flamethrower at it, but his attack barely missed, though the Grass-type flinched as the stream of fire flew past it. It spun around to face Cyndaquil and cried out with all three of its mouths. It began to charge up a Psychic attack in retaliation, but Skitty quickly dashed across the room in a blur and used Fake Out against it, making it stumble and lose its concentration. Its Psychic attack failed, and Skitty followed her attack up with a Tackle to knock it out.

	“Making the enemy lose its concentration is a good tactic,” Skitty remarked as her two companions walked up to her. “Causing a foe to cringe or flinch is helpful, because then it can’t keep using whatever move it was going to.”

	"I already know that," Cyndaquil said.

	"That was more for Clefairy's benefit," Skitty noted.

	"But I already knew it too," Clefairy said.

	Skitty looked at the Watcher and grinned sheepishly. "Oh... sorry. I wasn't sure if you knew about tactics like that."

	"It's not really much of a tactic," Clefairy said. "It seems like common sense, doesn't it?"

	"Well, you know what they say: common sense isn't common," Cyndaquil said. He had walked over to the blue orb that the Exeggutor had been looking at, and he was examining it as he joined in on the conversation between Skitty and Clefairy. "Sometimes, little strategies like opting to distract your enemy instead of focusing on dealing damage aren't used very often, despite being helpful. That's one thing you learn after going through mystery dungeons as much as Skitty and I have: brute force is not always the answer."

	As he spoke, he picked up the blue orb in his arms and walked over to Skitty. "Anyway... this is a Cleanse Orb. Not the most helpful item for us right now. It would have been better if it was a Petrify Orb so we could replace the last one, in case we find another Monster House… but let’s take this orb anyway. It could be useful.”

	He tossed the orb into one of Skitty’s bags, and then the three Pokémon looked around the room they had entered. They saw two paths branching off from opposite sides of the room, to the left and right.

	“Let’s go left this time,” Cyndaquil said. Skitty nodded quickly, and followed her partner. Clefairy stayed close behind her, and the trio went down the dimly lit hallway and into another dimly lit room. To their surprise, they saw a hole in the ground in the middle of the room, which revealed another flight of stairs descending down into darkness.

	“Stairs already?” Clefairy asked.

	“Sometimes you just get lucky and find the next flight of stairs without too much trouble,” Skitty said. “And sometimes you get super lucky and they’re in the first room of the floor. Of course, Cyndaquil always ignores them when that happens, and just goes around the whole floor looking for items.”

	“Hey, I only do that if we’re not in an emergency situation,” Cyndaquil said. “If we’re low on health or we’re going hungry, I always make a beeline for the stairs. Otherwise, there’s no reason to not take your time and explore.”

	“Please tell me you’re not planning to ignore these stairs, though, Cyndaquil. We don’t know how long the dungeon is. For all we know, this could be like the legendary Zero Isle dungeons. You remember those legends, right? One of those dungeons is said to have 100 floors. If this dungeon ends up being that long... We can’t afford to waste our time here. We should focus on completing this dungeon. Please.”

	Cyndaquil looked at his partner and sighed. “Alright. But only because you said please.”

	“I usually say please,” Skitty said. “You just ignore me.”

	“I don’t ignore you,” said the Fire-type, “I just can’t hear you over the sound of loot crying out to be claimed.”

	“Can we just get on with it?” Clefairy said suddenly, making the two Delvers stare at her. She looked back at them nervously before continuing, “I just really don’t like it in here, so could we please just go to the stairs? Like... right now?”

	The two Delvers nodded, and with the Watcher in tow, they went to the stairs and descended to the next floor, hoping to leave the dungeon soon.


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