Pokemon Mystery Dungeon [PMD RPG]

Darkness. Complete and total — not the darkness of a room with closed eyes, but the darkness of a place with no dimensions. No up. No down. No floor beneath your feet, yet you stood. No air against your skin, yet you breathed. Or thought you breathed. It was hard to tell where you ended and the void began.

Then — a voice.

It came from everywhere and nowhere. Not male, not female. Not old, not young. It carried no accent, no warmth, no coldness. It simply was, the way gravity simply is.

"...Hello there."

A pause. The darkness shifted — or you shifted inside it. Something like attention settled over you, gentle and vast, the way sunlight covers a field without pressing down on any single blade of grass.

"You are about to begin a journey. But before you step into that world, I need to understand who you are. Not your name — something deeper. The shape of you. The thing beneath the surface that you carry without thinking about it."

"I'm going to ask you a few questions. Answer honestly — not the answer you think is right, not the answer you think sounds good. The answer that is true. you'll know the difference."

A beat of silence. Then:

"First question."

"You're walking through a forest and you come across a Pokemon you've never seen before, lying injured at the side of the path. It's conscious, watching you. You don't know if it's dangerous. What do you do?"

"A — Approach carefully and offer help. The risk is worth it if someone is suffering."

"B — Keep your distance and call for someone more equipped to handle it."

"C — Observe from cover first. Gather information before committing to anything."

"D — Walk past. It's not your problem, and you don't owe a stranger anything."

The morning sun sat low over the rooftops of Riverstone Town, casting long amber light across the cobblestone plaza. The guild hall rose at the plaza's northern edge — a broad, sturdy structure of weathered stone and timber, its entrance framed by two wooden pillars carved with the guild's crest: a crossed staff and explorer's badge. Pokemon moved through the square in the easy rhythm of early morning — a Kecleon hauling crates of Oran Berries into his shop, a pair of Swellow ferry workers chatting on a bench, an old Slowpoke dozing against the fountain with a newspaper draped over his face.

Inside the guild hall, the entrance hall buzzed with quiet activity. The stone floor was swept clean. A bulletin board dominated the left wall, plastered with job notices and wanted posters. The right wall displayed a ranked ladder — wooden plaques bearing the names and badges of registered explorer teams, from Bronze rank at the bottom to the gleaming Gold plaque at the top, only three names on it. The air smelled of wood polish and something warm from the kitchen deeper inside — breakfast for the apprentices already underway.

A reception desk sat at the far end of the hall, positioned beneath a sign that read "REGISTRATION & INTAKE" in carved letters. Behind it stood a Lucario.

He was lean and composed, his blue-and-cream fur well-kept, the spike on his chest catching the light from a window above. His red eyes tracked the room with a calm, unhurried awareness — the kind that noticed everything and commented on nothing. A stack of forms sat neatly on the desk beside an ink pot and a pen. He stood with his arms folded, weight settled, patient as stone.

Those black head-appendages shifted — just slightly — as you entered. They rose an inch, then settled back down. Reading something. Feeling something out. His expression didn't change.

He watched you approach the desk. When you reached it, he regarded you for a moment in silence, then spoke in a low, even voice.

"Here to register."

It wasn't a question. He'd read it before you opened your mouth.

He pulled a form from the stack and set it on the desk between you, placing the pen beside it. His eyes met yours.

"Name, species, current level, any moves you know, whether you've got a team or partner already, prior exploration experience, emergency contact, and a brief reason for wanting to join." He tapped the paper with one claw. "Fill it out field by field. If you're not sure about something, ask. I'm not going anywhere."

A pause. He unfolded his arms and rested a paw on the desk.

"I'll also need to verify your level roughly. Don't be alarmed."

His head-appendages twitched again — faintly, almost imperceptibly. Reading aura. Getting a sense of you.

"Whenever you're ready."

The dungeon had gone wrong fast.

You didn't remember which floor you were on. Somewhere deep — the walls had turned from packed earth to damp stone, and the air tasted of mineral and old water. Your Treasure Bag was gone, lost three floors back when a wild Arbok cornered you in a dead end. No Oran Berries. No map. No partner. Your left leg was dragging from a hit you didn't see coming, and your belly had been empty long enough that your vision was going dark at the edges.

You made it into a wider chamber before your foot caught a loose stone and you went down hard. The cold floor pressed against your cheek. You couldn't get up. The hunger, the injury, the exhaustion — it had all become one weight pinning you to the stone.

This is where you faint.

Then — footsteps. Not the scrabbling of a wild Pokemon. Deliberate. Heavy. Bipedal. Coming closer.

A hand hooked under your arm and rolled you onto your back. The motion was practical — not gentle, not cruel. Just someone moving an obstacle to look at it.

An Incineroar crouched over you. Massive. Red and black fur. A belt of living flame around his waist, casting flickering orange light across the ceiling. Green eyes with yellow sclerae staring down at you between annoyance and curiosity. Heat radiated off him like a forge.

"You look like shit," he said flatly.

His eyes tracked your injured leg, your empty hands, the absence of a bag. "No bag. No partner. No food. You some kind of idiot, or just an unluck stupid?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He hauled you upright with one effortless motion — pulling your arm across his broad shoulders and taking your weight against his side. The ache in your leg eased. The warmth from his body pressed against you.

Then you saw it. Tied around his right wrist, half-hidden under black fur — a faded strip of red cloth stamped with a black mark. An outlaw's brand. The same mark you'd seen on wanted posters back at the guild. A registered outlaw. The kind apprentice teams were sent to apprehend.

He noticed you staring. His gaze dropped to the cloth, then rose back to your face. His expression didn't change. He didn't hide it. Didn't explain it.

"Don't read into this," he muttered, already moving through the corridor. "I've got business down here, and I can't have you dying in the middle of my route, it would be a pain in the ass to deal with it."

You weren't an explorer. You'd never been an explorer. You were just a citizen — someone who lived in town, bought groceries from Kecleon's shop, waved at neighbors, and went to bed at a reasonable hour. You had no Explorer Badge, no Treasure Bag, no combat training worth mentioning. The closest you'd ever come to dungeon work was reading the job board out of curiosity on your way to the market.

Which made it all the more baffling that you were currently lost inside one.

You'd only stepped a few paces into the dungeon entrance at the edge of town — a shallow one, supposedly safe, the kind children dared each other to peek into. You'd gone in on a dare of your own, stupidly, and the dungeon had shifted behind you. The entrance vanished. The corridor rearranged. Three steps in and you were somewhere else entirely, the walls pressing close, the ceiling low, the air thick with the smell of moss and wet earth.

That was two hours ago. Maybe three. You'd lost count.

You were not built for this. Your paws ached from walking on rough stone. You had no food. You had no idea which direction led out. Every time you found a corridor that looked familiar, it dead-ended or doubled back on itself. Wild Pokemon lurked in the shadows — small ones, mostly, but they didn't need to be large. They just needed to be aggressive. You'd backed away from three encounters already, heart pounding, relying on the fact that you could still outrun them.

The fourth one you couldn't outrun.

A wild Pokemon — you didn't even catch what species, just eyes in the dark and a flash of movement — hit you from the side. You went sprawling. Something stung across your ribs. You scrambled to your feet and ran, limping, until the pain and the exhaustion caught up with you in a narrow corridor where the walls were close enough to touch on both sides.

You slid down against the stone and sat there. Breathing hard. Ribs aching. No food. No map. No way out.

This is how explorers die, isn't it?

You weren't even an explorer. This would be embarrassing if it weren't terrifying.

Then the corridor changed. Not the walls — the air. A shimmer, like heat rising off summer cobblestones, rippled through the space ahead of you. The shadows bent. The light from somewhere above twisted, refracted, and for a moment the corridor looked like somewhere else entirely — a street, a building, a memory made visible.

Illusion.

A Pokemon stepped through the shimmer and it collapsed behind him like a drawn breath released.

A Zoroark. Tall, lean, slate-gray fur with crimson and black accents. His mane — that massive, voluminous red mane tied into a ponytail with a teal bangle — shifted as he moved, black-tipped strands catching the faint light. His red-rimmed eyes found you immediately, light blue irises sharp and assessing. Red claws. A relaxed but deliberate posture. The black ruff at his shoulders rose slightly as he took in the scene — you, slumped against the wall, battered, wide-eyed, clearly not an explorer.

An Explorer Badge was pinned to the ruff on his chest. Guild-affiliated.

He stood there for a moment, looking at you. His expression was unreadable — not cold, not warm. The particular neutral of someone who was very good at not showing what he was thinking.

"Huh," he said.

He crouched down in front of you, one elbow resting on his knee, claws dangling loosely. Up close, his eyes were striking — that light blue framed in red, watching you with an attention that felt like it was peeling layers off you without touching your skin.

"You're not an explorer," he said. Not a question.

His gaze moved over your ribs — where the hit had landed — then back to your face. His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Something adjacent.

"Let me guess. You wandered in. Dungeon shifted behind you. Couldn't find your way back." He tilted his head, mane swaying with the motion. "Did I get it?"

He didn't wait long for an answer. He straightened, held out a hand — red claws, slim fingers — and waited for you to take it.

"Come on. Up. I'll get you out of here."