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Works of Nature

Kenji . She can't bear the heat that much? Sweating's actually healthy for you... He shrugged to himself, and dashed after her. Grovile sighed, and closely followed his master. He enjoyed taking in the sunlight; it produced nourishment for the leaf Pokemon, but he guessed it didn't have the same effect with Humans.
 
Beth stepped gratefully upon the front stoop of the small, lone building on the edge of the forest. She knocked on the door and waited with baited breath for an answer. Kenji slowed to a stop behind her, but she didn't turn to look at him.

No answer. Beth frowned, and knocked again, this time much harder. With a creak and a wail the door opened. Beth started a bit, shocked that the house was open, before tentatively pushing her way inside.

"Hello?"

The one room--no exits other than the front door--was empty, and decked out fully in a traditional Asian style. She frowned, stepping in further. A sudden gleam caught the corner of her eye and she spun about, gaze narrowing in on the offending object. There was nothing, but growing suspicious, Beth began to feel around the room.

"I saw something over here."

Her hand fell onto a floor cushion, and she would have passed it by if her weight hadn't pushed the material down; causing her hand to connect with something hard. Beth blinked and wriggled her fingers under the soft velvet. The digits pressed against something cold and metallic. Beth inhaled sharply and worked her fingers around the thing, hoping the floor wouldn't give out below her or a cage fall from the ceiling.

She flipped the hidden switch, and a tall wall painting against the back moved with a sudden flow of air, rippling.

She looked up at Kenji and grinned.

"Wanna check it out?"

((OC: I've always been under the impression that the Trick Guy was immortal or something, or at least carrying on a family tradition.))
 
(Yeah, I've been thinking that as well.)

Kenji looked around the room, incase there were anything else that might surprise them. The coast was clear, as far as he was concerned. "Why not. This looks to be interesting. Besides, we could use a little fun around here." Grovile nodded, thinking of yesterday yet again. "Ladies first."
 
Beth stepped forward, pushing the wall hanging aside. A dark, windy opening greeted her, and she frowned at the slightly stale air.

"Seems to be underground," She said as she stepped tentatively forward. As she had thought, a stair met her foot, and feeling her way she slowly began to descend.

The stairs seemed to go on forever. It stopped sooner than she thought it would, however, as the ground leveled out before her. She stumbled a bit on the last step but recovered, peering around. On the wall a few feet away a dimly burning bracket lent a little light to the area; just enough to make out the crumbling stone walls.

Beth frowned.

"What is this? Some kind of maze?"
 
Kenji couldn't make heads or tails of the location that Beth just lead him too. "I've never been here before. Who would have the time to set up a maze like this?" It just didn't make any sense to Kenji. The walls looked like they could easily be crumbled away, and there was just enough light to see where you were going. "Which way should we go?"
 
Beth shrugged, taking a ginger step forward. The ground shifted slightly under her feet, but the support held.

She sighed in relief. "I don't know. Let's just pick a direction and move."

She turned to the left fork, passing through after grabbing a torch from a bracket. It helped illuminate the pathway, and she was careful to avoid the protruding corners of neglected floor tiles.

"What gets me is the state of this place. It's obvious someone lives above, and they most definitely know about the switch. So why would this place be down here? Are they hiding something? Is it supposed to be secret?"

The more she speculated the more excited she became. She continued on, Crest following at her heels. She stayed well within the reach of the dim light, afraid to be in the shadows alone, despite being a Dark Pokemon.
 
Kenji was just as lost as his travelling companion was. "I don't know. It's really bizzare. This place looks like it was meant to be set up for whoever was curious enough to trot on down here. But that's as far as my knowledge goes." He looked to his leafy friend, who shugged back at his trainer.
 
Beth fell silent, contemplating. They continued on like that, taking seemingly (and most likely) random turns in the maze; sometimes coming across walls that were completely collapsed. Using the advantage Beth stepped over the rubble, cutting the time to traverse the maze in two.

The scenery was changing. More torches hung along the walls than before, and this part of the maze seemed to be in better shape. She turned right, breath catching as she came across a door. It was almost hanging off its hinges; rusted and slintering, it was thoroughly beaten.

With a moment of hesitation Beth pushed the door open, venturing inside. A small chamber was beyond the wood, lit only by a sputtering lantern in the corner. A dirty, unkept person was sitting curled up in the corner. A half empty bottle of liquor was clasped tightly in his right hand, the other pressed against his knees.

He started drowsily as they entered, blearly and unfocused eyes snapping up to close in on them.

"Who are you?" He asked in a slurred, hoarse voice.

Beth raised an eyebrow.

"I think the question here is what you're doing in this place." She sniffed the air delicately, wrinkling her nose. "And drunk, no less."
 
Kenji sweatdropped. "Did you get lost in here or something? You look like you were in here for days." He looked around the room. It seemed simualar to the room they saw upstairs, set with more dusty and older dressers. The table was missing a leg, and the cushions were full of stains. "How'd you get in here, anyway?" This was too strange.
 
He looked in Kenji's general direction--though three feet to his left.

"Whuzzat?" He muttered, rubbing at his only visible eye. The other was hidden by a tangle of hair.

"My friend. Now answer the question."

The man struggled with himself, apparently trying to collect his thoughts.

"I live 'ere."

"...You...live here?" Beth asked slowly, looking around the room. "This dump?"

The man waved his hand, accidently slamming the bottle into the table. Another leg was swept out under it, the fragile, collapsing wood giving easily under the blow.

He ignored the crash. "Nah. S'upstairssss...Hommeee... Dizzowned..."

He trailed off, mumbling something under his breath.

Beth shook her head.

"Okay, so you live upstairs. Then why are you down here?"

"Dizzowned," He repeated after a moment, "famaly gone. Tradition dead. Ss'nothin' left."

"So what's your family tradition?"

"...Ugh...tr...tricks..." He inverted the bottle over his head, taking a large gulp. With a sound of disgust Beth snatched it from him.

"Hey...!"

"That's enough. Kenji, help me get him upstairs."

Beth grabbed the man by the arm, hauling him up with all her strength. He didn't resist, but he didn't aid her attempt. He let himself by dragged along like a lump.

"Let's go back to the entrance. It shouldn't be too hard to find. We followed all the collapsed walls."
 
Kenji walked his way over and grabbed him by the other shoulder. "Jeez, this guy weighs a ton." He sighed as he startted tugging him through the disorted maze, walking over the crumbled walls and keeping an eye behind of them. It was even harder to see while keeping their strength on the drunkard.
 
They reached the exit sooner than Beth had expected, and with relief she pushed the wall scroll aside, taking a deep breath. The air below was musty and humid, and the man's stench of filth and alcohol only enhanced the unpleasantness.

She deposited him on the nearest cushion, but remained standing over him.

"Why is the tradition 'gone'?"

He shook his head, depressed that they had left his bottle behind in the underground room.

"Pops...Trick Mazter...Dead...No more...Trick House..."

Beth made another sound of disgust.

"Then why don't you just continue the tradition yourself?"

He shook his head again, refusing to acknowledge her statement.

"Kenji? Some help here please?"
 
Kenji's face showed both confusion and discust. He shrugged, and decided to try and hear him out. "Well, just because your father died, doesn't mean you can't start it back up..." He paused for a moment, seeing his remark had little effect. "Why, I bet if you just re-work the downstairs, the place will be good as new. You might even consider switching it up a bit!"
 
He shrugged.

"Don't know...how..."

Beth looked around the room. Nothing had changed; it was still the Asian style it had been before.

"Did your father keep a journal or something? Anything that could tell what you could do to pick up the tradition again?"

He thought, squinting his eyes harshly.

"Notebook," He muttered at last. "Shelf. Notes."

Beth frowned and looked around for the 'shelf'. She didn't see it, until her eyes snagged on a bookshelf turned into a china cabinet. She walked over and felt it up and down, looking for a hidden compartment or something similar.

Her fingers caught on something protruding from the wood, and with a flick a hidden drawer sprung open, revealing a faded and old notebook. She gently took it out and blew on it before handing it over to the man.

"Come on, Kenji," She said, heading for the door. "We can't do anything else here."
 
He nodded, showing signs of relief. "Well, we'd best be off. Good luck to you and your tradition." he said, waving back at the odd man. Grovile observed the man with interest; he'd never seen a person 'drunk' before. Kenji called to his pokemon, and they soon after left the man to his buisiness. The group lunged back into the baking sunlight.

"That was weird..."
 
Beth frowned, putting her hands up to shield her face from the sun. Crest followed, glad to be out of the dark and back in the sun.

"You get a lot of weirdos in the world. He was just one of many. To think he gave up the family tradition that easily...It's hard to believe."

She shrugged.

"How long will it take us to reach the next town? I'm not sweating now, but the afternoon's approaching and it's going to get blazing hot soon."

Crest seemed happy with the idea, but Beth grimaced. She had never dealt well with heat. It was odd, considering she trained Fire Pokemon.
 
Kenji reached into his pouch to take out a folded map of the Hoenn Region. The cornors were bent and there were tears in several different places of the border, not to menton the faded paper color. "Well, by the looks of things, not too long. We should be at Mauville City if we just keep going north. He folded the map back into it's square form it was in previously, and put it back into the pouch it came from.

Grovile smiled at the sky, was the Sun's rays met with his respective leaves.
 
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