Chapter 2: Preparations

Meadowville was pleasant.

The stores all had writing on them, however Jeana was incapable of reading most of the writing. While the market was not crowded, there were still many Pokemon bustling about in it. While Jeana did not recognize most of their species, most seemed to be Grass types. She could identify at least that.

Despite living in a world with Pokemon, Jeana did not actually know very much about them, and could only identify a few species.

The market was actually rather uncomfortable for her. Her senses had sharpened quite a bit upon becoming an espurr, allowing her to hear and smell more clearly. While most of the Grass types smelled rather nice, a few smelled rather rotten. Especially one blue-skinned Pokemon with a massive red bloom on its head, like some kind of perfumed sombrero. That one smelled putrid. In addition, Jeana was unsure if this was simply her going crazy or not, but she could hear voices in her head that didn’t sound like her own thoughts.

She didn’t know very much about espurrs, but weren’t they Psychic types? Was she hearing the thoughts of other Pokemon? Weird.

Jeana felt something welling up in her chest. No, no no no. She needed to find somewhere much quieter. She shoved her nose in her arm fur, pressed her ears harder onto her head, and started quickly walking out of the marketplace. She shut her eyes, trying to block out the thoughts of strange Pokemon, and so didn’t notice when she ran into someone else.

She let out a small groan, as she fell backwards.

“Oh my Mew, I’m sorry!” the other Pokemon quickly apologized. “I got distracted, I really should’ve looked where I was walking.”

Jeana opened her eyes, removed her paws from her ears, and stood up. The Pokemon she had run into she could recognize. It was an eevee, with large blue eyes. The eevee was wearing a brown cloak covering most of her back, and had a pouch of some kind dangling around her neck. The eevee herself smelled like leaves and dirt, but the pouch smelled very nice, mostly masking the eevee’s unpleasant scent.

“...It’s okay,” Jeana told the eevee. “So was I.”

“Heh, I guess we’re both kind of scatterbrained, then!” the eevee chirped.

Jeana decided not to respond to that.

“You look really lost. And I don’t recognize you. Are you new to Meadowville?”

“Yes,” Jeana responded.

“Oh, that’s really cool! I hope you’re enjoying your visit, then!” the eevee continued. “It’s really a nice place. I like it.”

Jeana nodded.

“Oh, right! My name’s Eona. It’s nice to meet you! What’s your name?”

“Jeana.”

“Huh. I don’t think that’s a name I’ve heard before, but I like it.” Eona smiled warmly. “Hey, if you want, I could show me around. You look kind of lost.”

“Okay,” Jeana responded.

Eona nodded. “Okay! So, right now we’re in the Marketplace. That store over there is Kecleon’s Market, Kecleon sells berries, orbs, seeds, Wands, and the like. If you steal from him he will invite his extended family to help him hunt you down. He has a store in almost every town or city in Leginda…” Eona gave a wry grin. “But to be honest, everyone knows the berries and seeds grown in Meadowville are the best ever, so Pokemon just buy berries and seeds from the smaller local shops, and all Kecleon sells here are his Wands, Orbs, and Elixirs! By the way, my mum sells the absolute best healing berries, she’s a leafeon and her shop is Verdant’s Apothecary Shop, it’s cheaper than Kecleon’s stuff too!” Eona hummed, looking about the marketplace before pointing with her tail at another shop. “That over there is Klefki! Klefki is a workaholic, so she does like three jobs at once! Klefki runs the Deposeit Box, where you can store items and money, and Klefki also does a locksmith business so if you need a lock opened Klefki can do that for you! Klefki loves money almost as much as Kecleon, so Klefki makes you pay interest for storing stuff, though! Oh, and over there is Pelipper Post Office, but it’s not all pelippers that work there. I don’t think any pelippers work in the Meadowville branch at all. So their name is pretty deceiving if you ask me. And… the Rose Cafe is over there. Roserade runs it. Roserade is a family friend of mine, Mum gets her lots of ingredients that she uses. Errrr… Over there, that’s Chesnaught’s Dojo. The rookie guild members hang out there a lot, to train themselves without risking losing their gear in a mystery dungeon. And that’s the Guild over there, Meadow Guild! The explorers over there are… Well, most are good at what they do. But I think it’s a requirement for a lot of the guild members to be wacky.”

Jeana frowned, and nodded along as the young eevee spoke at a rapid pace. “If I were to need to go into a mystery dungeon,” she asked, carefully. “Where would I go, and what would I need to buy?”

Eona blinked. “Uh, well healing berries like my mum sells would be really useful. And I’d also recommend checking out Kecleon’s Market.”

Jeana nodded. “Alright…”

“I can introduce you to my mum! C’mon, follow me!” Eona exclaimed, before trotting towards a medium sized hut, looking like it was mostly made out of tall grasses. Jeana squinted, following Eona. There seemed to be briars and flower buds growing out of it.

Inside the hut, it smelled pleasantly of lavender. A leafeon with brown eyes, and green leaves that seemed to have turned orange at the tips turned her attention to Jeana and Eona. Some faint silver streaks were visible in the leafeon’s fur.

“Eona, did you give Raider the berries like I asked you to?” the leafeon asked.

Eona nodded. “Yeah! She gave me the usual amount of poke for your berries… And she gave me some extra, and said to ‘keep the change’!”

Eona’s mother smiled, then looked at Jeana. Jeana stared back, with a neutral expression.

“Good job, dear,” the grass fox said. “And who is your friend…?”

“Oh, mum, this is Jeana! Jeana, this is my mum. Jeana’s going to take the mock job and join the Meadow Guild,” Eona spoke.

“It is nice to meet you… Mrs. Leafeon,” the newly made espurr spoke. Jeana wanted to frown, but maintained her neutral expression. I didn’t tell her that…

“Call me Verdant,” the leafeon corrected. “And really? Hm… I suppose you’ll want some basic healing berries, then. Give me a few moments.”

Verdant padded into a back room. Eona turned to Jeana.

“Hey, Jeana,” the eevee said. “You don’t have any poke, do you? That’s okay, I can pay for you!”

“...Why?” Jeana asked. “Are you going to use it to call in a favor, later on?”

“Eheheh…” Eona giggled slightly. “It’s always nice to have a favor you can call in, it’s true… But no. That’s not the main reason. I’ve got a good feeling about you.”

Jeana gave Eona a rather confused look. “...That’s completely illogical? What if I intended to use your money to… buy illicit goods?”

Eona let out a loud laugh. “Haha! Well, first of all, I know you won’t spend my money on illicit goods, because it’s me buying healing berries for you, in the same room as you, from someone who I know doesn’t sell ‘illicit goods’!” When she stopped laughing, she gave Jeana a little smile. “Also, my gut instinct is pretty good at this stuff. I trust it!”

Jeana gave Eona a concerned look, making the eevee laugh again.

“Here we go!”

Verdant walked back into the main room of the hut, depositing multiple berries bound in a leaf at Jeana’s feet. “I’ve packed you an oran, a pecha, a cheri, and for good measure a rawst and a leppa. I thought about adding an aspear, but Ice types are usually only seen around Icicle City, up in North Leginda, nowhere near here… So you should be set. Let’s see… I think a haxocoin should cover it.”

“...” Jeana stared blankly at Verdant.

“500 poke. A haxocoin is 500 poke,” Verdant clarified.

“Jeana doesn’t have any poke, mum. So I’ll pay!” Eona spoke up. She turned around, moving the cloak off her back and revealing a small brown satchel. She gently bit the flap on the satchel, opening it.

“Eona, are you sure you have enough money?” Verdant asked.

“Mm-hm!” Eona said, before rooting about with a paw in the satchel, causing some coins engraved with various Pokemon species to fall out. “Uh… Here I’ve got two bulbacoins, that’s two hundred… Three pikacoins, that’s one-fifty, and two poochcoins makes a hundred, so so far that’s uh… four hundred! And here’s a venucoin, so that’s actually six hundred! I’ve got more than enough!”

Verdant sighed, and moved some of the coins over to herself. “Well. Good luck with that job, Jeana. Goodbye.”

“Bye, Jeana!” Eona said.

Jeana nodded. “Thank you very much and goodbye, Eona, Mrs. Verdant.”

The espurr picked up the berries wrapped in the leaves, and made her way back towards the main entrance of the Mead Guild, to wait for the test to begin.

---

At midday, Guildmaster Solaris had met Jeana with a small yellow sphere-like creature, which had stubby limbs and white and red braids. The creature had introduced itself as Lina the chingling, and Teleported both Jeana and the Guildmaster to outside a so-called ‘mystery dungeon’, called Gracedia Fields.

“This is the mission,” Solaris told Jeana. “You will escort Lina to floor four of the Gracedia Fields mystery dungeon, where there is located a treasure chest. You’ll have to protect Lina from attacks by feral Pokemon. If you faint, Lina is too heavily damaged, or you wish to give up on the test, Lina will Teleport you out of the dungeon.”

“The Meadow Guild’s got a strict reputation, so I’m not going to make things easy for you!” Lina said, sticking her tongue out. “Besides, I’ve been looking forwards to playing the part of ‘helpless weakling overdramatic civilian’!”

“If Jeana scrapes her knee and you count that as ‘fainting’,” Solaris informed Lina, “You’re going to be on the midnight shift at the reception desk. I think Rit would appreciate being allowed to oversleep.”

Lina huffed and pouted, crossing her braids like arms. “...I can still be overdramatic and stuff though, right?”

“Of course,” Solaris told her.

Lina bounced a bit, letting out a peal like a bell when she did so. “Okay! I’m good with that!”

Jeana had a feeling she wasn’t going to enjoy this mission very much…

“You may enter the dungeon when ready,” Solaris told the two. Jeana nodded, before stepping over and crossing into Gracedia Fields mystery dungeon. Lina followed her in.