Wartortle looked as guileless and earnest as ever, struggling to cram several oversized fruits into its pack.
Dragonair coiled lazily in midair with its eyes closed, radiating a faint chill that seemed to drop the temperature of everything around it by a few degrees.
As for Yancy's own character, Larvesta, it was sprawled listlessly on a rock in the middle of the screen, antennae drooping, looking like it hadn't quite woken up yet.
"Everyone's looking pretty good," Yancy said cheerfully.
She tapped away at her keyboard, guiding Larvesta over to pull up the quest log and see what was on the agenda for the day. Just then, Wartortle suddenly stopped what it was doing.
As if remembering something, it carefully dug around at the very bottom of its pack and produced a yellowed piece of parchment.
A map.
Wartortle cradled it in both hands and trotted over to Larvesta on its stubby little legs, pointing to a spot on the map circled heavily in red ink. A dialogue box popped up with its earnest words: "Captain, take a look at this."
Yancy blinked and leaned closer to the screen. "This is...?"
"It's the hidden reward the system gave us after we cleared the Time Wheel Labyrinth yesterday," Wartortle explained, a hint of excitement creeping into its voice. "I was just looking it over, and the place marked on this map is called the Lava Gear Labyrinth. A few days ago, I heard people talking about it. Apparently, deep inside the labyrinth, there's a special kind of power... something like the Power of the Sun?"
Wartortle looked up at that point, its big eyes fixed hopefully on the Larvesta on the screen.
"You've been stuck at an evolution bottleneck for a while now, haven't you, Captain? The notes I found said this Power of the Sun can greatly accelerate mutation and evolution in Fire-type Pokémon. Should we go in and try our luck?"
Yancy's heart gave a sudden lurch.
Without thinking, she glanced at her tiny little character on the screen.
Larvesta had been with the team from the start, and Yancy had dutifully commanded every battle, but when the fighting actually broke out, all the real damage came from Wartortle and Dragonair.
Evolution. That was the biggest obstacle standing in front of her right now.
"The Power of the Sun..." Yancy murmured, repeating the words to herself.
Just from the name alone, she could tell this dungeon would be no pushover. It might even be more dangerous than the Time Wheel Labyrinth had been yesterday.
But for her teammates, and so she could stop being the dead weight cheering from the back, this was a risk worth taking.
"Alright! We're heading to the Lava Gear Labyrinth!"
"One question, though. How exactly do we get there?"
[OMFG, exploring a new map again?!]
[Lava Gear Labyrinth, the name alone makes me feel hot. Remember to bring a fire extinguisher, streamer (jk).]
[I really hope it can evolve. I've been waiting forever.]
To a chorus of cheers from the chat, Yancy guided her party along the route marked on the map. After a good stretch of walking, they finally arrived at a cave entrance billowing with rolling waves of heat effects.
The screen shifted, and the entire display seemed to wash over with a deep crimson filter.
This was the Lava Gear Labyrinth.
Unlike the eerie, time-warped atmosphere of the dungeon yesterday, this place had a distinctly industrial character. Enormous bronze gears turned slowly behind the rocky walls, filling the air with a teeth-grinding screech of metal on metal. Dark-red magma churned through channels carved into the ground, occasionally erupting into surges of searing flame, and the shimmering heat distortion effects were rendered with impressive realism.
"This environment is supposed to be home turf for Fire-types?" Yancy muttered, watching the dramatic effects play out on her screen. By rights, Fire-type Pokémon should thrive in a place like this, with boosted attributes across the board.
Reality had other ideas.
Barely two steps into the labyrinth, Yancy noticed Larvesta's health bar in the lower left corner quietly tick down by a small amount.
"Huh? Why is it taking damage?"
She quickly opened the status menu and stared at it in disbelief.
[WARNING: Ambient temperature too high. Larvesta's level is too low to adapt. Current constitution insufficient. Suffering minor burn damage over time.]
"Are you serious?!"
Yancy let out a short, incredulous laugh, half amused and half exasperated.
"I'm a Fire-type too! How does every other Fire-type get a buff here, but I'm the one bleeding out? Could this game be any more blatant about playing favorites?!"
[LMAOOO, called it. Weak fire indeed.]
[This is the tragedy of low base stats. Even the environment bullies it.]
[Pouring one out for the streamer. Larvesta really cannot catch a break.]
Resigned to her situation, Yancy carefully steered Larvesta along the edges of the path, doing her best to avoid the steam vents puffing hot air across the floor. As the party painstakingly worked its way around one of the massive rotating gears, Yancy caught a fleeting shape out of the corner of her eye. Up in the shadows of a dark ventilation shaft near the top of the screen, a slender silhouette flickered past.
It looked like some kind of lizard-type Pokémon, fast and completely silent.
"Who's there?!"
Yancy tensed immediately, swinging the camera toward the spot with a sharp jerk of her mouse.
But when she got a clear look at the area, all she saw were a few massive gears turning at their slow, steady pace and a handful of fire-spark pixels drifting through the air.
Empty. Nothing there at all.
"Phew..." She let out a breath. "Guess I was seeing things. That was too jumpy of me. This labyrinth really is kind of creepy."
She shook off the moment and turned her attention back to the path ahead, leading the party deeper inside.
But the instant she looked away, a pair of cold eyes were watching from inside the ventilation shaft, staring silently through the dark at the retreating backs of her party.
Deeper in the labyrinth, Yancy's group ran into their first ambush.
A pack of Level 42 Camerupt.
These creatures were belching thick black smoke from the volcanoes on their backs, several levels above the ordinary mobs outside, and they looked thoroughly ill-tempered.
"Watch out! Everyone, get ready to fight!"
Yancy snapped into combat mode, fingers flying across the keyboard.
"Wartortle, you've got the type advantage, go first!"
After several battles together, Yancy had figured out that the best approach was to enable semi-AI combat and layer her own commands on top of it. That way, even if she missed a reaction window, Wartortle and Dragonair could still make sensible decisions on the fly.
At her command, Wartortle's expression sharpened.
A brilliant blue shimmer rippled across its body, the effect of the A-rank item they had looted from the Time Wheel Labyrinth the day before: the Mystic Water. Not only did it boost the power of Water-type moves, it also came with an additional effect that let Water-type attacks punch straight through targets.
Wartortle threw its head back and opened its jaws wide. A massive column of water surged out like a pressurized cannon blast.
Hydro Pump!
BOOM!
Water exploded across the screen in all directions. The torrent tore through the two Camerupt at the front with brutal momentum, dropping both of them at once.
-210!
-222!
Two enormous red damage numbers floated up.
Neither of the Level 42 Camerupt even had time to cry out before they collapsed, knocked out cold.
"Wow, that damage," Yancy said, genuinely impressed.
The Mystic Water really had made a significant difference to Wartortle's output, and that piercing effect was going to be invaluable in fights with multiple targets bunched together.
"Dragonair, your turn!"
Dragonair slowly opened its eyes from where it hovered in midair, its violet pupils perfectly calm.
A strange black luster flowed across its scales, the signature of its A-rank item, the Black Scales. The accessory gave a small boost to all stats and infused its Dragon-type moves with an armor-break effect, shaving down the defense of any target it struck.
Dragonair let out a low, resonant note, and the air around it seemed to shudder in response.
Dragon Pulse!
A wave of deep violet energy rolled outward like a breaking tide, washing over the remaining Camerupt in an instant.
The ground shook with the impact.
When the dust settled, every last one of them was down. The experience summary window hadn't even loaded yet by the time the fight ended.
Yancy stared at the field of spoils and blinked, still processing what had just happened.
Watching both teammates perform so brilliantly, she guided Larvesta in to join them.
But when she looked at the Camerupt, she hesitated for only a moment before pressing the skill key anyway.
Larvesta spat out a small puff of flame at one of them, a Camerupt that had taken a direct hit from Dragonair's attack and was hanging on by a sliver of health.
Puf.
The little tongue of fire landed against the Camerupt's thick hide and did about as much as a gentle sneeze would.
-15.
A painfully small damage number drifted upward.
Before Yancy could process it, the Camerupt that should have gone down suddenly exploded into action. The humps on its back split open and discharged a gushing plume of black-red smoke directly at Larvesta.
Smokescreen!
Yancy's eyes went wide. Her fingers hammered at the keyboard in a frantic attempt to pull back.
But the move had area coverage, and Larvesta had gotten too close.
There was no way Larvesta's fragile little body could survive a direct hit from something like that.
The scorching cloud was about to swallow it whole when a blue shape came diving in from the side.
Wartortle.
Without a split second of hesitation, it tucked into its shell and spun at high speed, planting itself like a shield between the smoke and Larvesta.
Shell Smash into Iron Defense!
THUD!
The cloud slammed into Wartortle's shell with a heavy, muffled impact. Its health bar dropped by a small margin, but it had absorbed the blow completely.
Dragonair reacted at almost the same moment, hitting the Camerupt with a Dragon Rage that put it down for good.
The battle was over.
Yancy looked at the small dip in Wartortle's health bar and felt something uncomfortable settle over her.
In any other game, she probably would have shrugged it off.
But right now, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had just made things harder for everyone.
The results screen came up.
Wartortle gained 1,500 EXP.
Dragonair gained 1,800 EXP.
Larvesta gained 200 EXP.
"Great," she muttered.
Two hundred. Just looking at it made her stomach hurt. She opened her inventory and her gaze drifted to the Crimson Cape that had been sitting in the corner untouched. It was a powerful Fire-type item, designed to massively boost the wielder's Fire-type move power and Special Attack. It might as well have been made specifically for Larvesta. But the equipment requirements section was grayed out with a single line of text: Minimum Level 50, first evolution required.
Larvesta's current level: 45.
It couldn't even clear the bare minimum.
Yancy let out a long, slow sigh.
She felt like someone trying to level up an alt account with the help of a fully-geared main, except the alt just refused to grow, and instead of catching up, it was dragging the whole party down.
There was nothing else to do about it. Experience was distributed based on contribution, and as Larvesta kept falling further behind, its share of the rewards naturally kept shrinking.
A few minutes later, the party reached a small resupply point deeper in the labyrinth, a modest clearing with a pool of clear water and a cluster of red antidote herbs growing around the edges.
Yancy called a halt and let them rest up and recover.
The chat had gotten a little harder to read.
[Okay but why hasn't the streamer evolved yet? Larvesta is so squishy, it nearly died again just now.]
[Seriously. The captain of that other guild's team already evolved into Talonflame and is just flying around looking amazing, and we're still stuck here babysitting a bug. It's exhausting to watch.]
[Is this game just inherently rough on Bug-types? Not strong early, not strong late. When does it get to shine?]
[Maybe just reroll the account? Larvesta is kind of a lost cause at this point.]
[Reroll with what? She's built a bond with Wartortle and Dragonair. Do you not have a heart?]
There were fans in chat trying to comfort her too, offering encouragement about the possibility of eventually pulling off the evolution.
But those words rang hollow against the current state of things.
Yancy read through the comments and found herself thinking about the day before.
Right. She had dragged everyone down again.
What else could she do?
She still had no idea how to make Larvesta evolve.
If she had known it would come to this, she never would have taken the risk of picking it in the first place.
But just as Yancy was sinking into that spiral of self-doubt, something on the screen shifted.
Deep shadows, with only a few thin shafts of light filtering through the cracks.
A slender green figure lay motionless at the edge of a ventilation shaft overhead, a stem of some wild grass hanging from the corner of its mouth, its cold eyes fixed downward on the resting party below.
It was a Grovyle.
But there was nothing ordinary about this one. It carried none of the fresh, earthy quality of the forest. Instead, something sharp and unsettling radiated from it, like a blade kept hidden in the dark.
The Grovyle chewed slowly on the grass stem, gaze locked on the smallest and weakest figure below.
"Bonds," it murmured to itself, voice low and rough, empty of feeling.
"Nothing more than an excuse weak creatures use to justify huddling together for warmth. In a world this harsh, only strength means anything. A bond without strength is just a cobweb. One touch and it falls apart."
It watched Wartortle clumsily applying a Potion to Larvesta, watched Dragonair hold a cold silence while still positioning itself at the best angle to keep watch, and let the corner of its mouth curl into a thin, contemptuous smile.
"What a pathetic sight. Two strong ones lowering themselves like this, all for the sake of a washout."