Once again, the noise of rock rumbling across rock echoed through the mountains, as Donna pressed her facial shield against one of the boulders, using her squat but incredibly powerful body to move the material.

Over the last three days, Donna and Silvester had worked hard, constantly shifting rock and removing debris. At first, Silvester had bludgeoned the rockslide, shifting some of it and breaking other parts, making the whole mess more manageable. But just because the rocks had been cracked, it didn’t mean the path was restored. For that, Donna had done a lot of work, pushing the rocks into the slopes to either side, making the valley a little more narrow but also clearing the path. Some of the rocks, she had even pushed out of the narrow part of the valley entirely, depositing them further down the slope, where they wouldn’t be in the way.

In the meantime, Silvester had turned the destroyed parts of the road back into a beaten path, using his weight and careful, precise stomps to even things out, so people could walk quickly and without worries up the mountain.

“Great, Donna, that was the last of it,” Wera cheered, looking incredibly pleased with herself but also tired. While the primary work had been done by her partners, Wera had demonstrated why she had more muscles than me, she hadn’t hesitated to get her hands dirty and work with them. When the rocks needed shifting, she had repeatedly braced them and even moved some without her partners. Given that a few of those rocks were almost my size, she had thoroughly impressed me, from a purely physical perspective.

“Well done,” I complimented, sliding down the slope once more. While my primary job had been to sit up on the ledge and keep an eye out for trouble, I had learned a few interesting things. Not enough to get to work on my own, or instruct my partners in that fashion, but it was a start. Maybe, if the mess wasn’t as sizable, I could deal with a small one by myself. In the evenings, Charm and I had worked on his Fighting-Style moves, using the large boulders they had moved aside and Charm had managed to smash them reliably.

“What’s the plan now?” I asked, looking up into the sky. It was early afternoon, so we would be able to get in an hour or two of travel if we continued moving immediately. It wouldn’t be as comfortable as the camp we had used for the last few days, but we could get moving.

“Would you mind if we try finding out what’s up there?” Wera asked, looking up the slope, studying the area where the rockslide had originated once more. She was completely convinced that there was something of interest there, but so far, I hadn’t seen it.

“You think we can get up there?” I had to ask, not completely confident to make the climb. It was steep, some of the soil still loose from the rockslide and overall, it wouldn’t be a fun experience. Climbing up, and possibly sliding down, a few metres of the slope was one thing, doing the same for some fifty metres didn’t sound like a fun time.

“We should be able to manage if we work together. Connect us with the rope, one person moving until they find a suitable spot to brace and switch off. If one of us falls, the other can brace them,” she explained and I looked at her for a moment, before looking down at myself.

“I’m not confident that I can brace you,” I admitted, having a rough idea of how much muscle was packed on her bulky frame and just how heavy she had to be.

“It’ll be fine,” she promised, giving me a confident look. For a moment, I considered, not sure if I should agree. But at the same time, I was curious about what was up there, especially since Wera was completely convinced that there was something special.

“Fine,” I nodded, letting my curiosity get the better of me. “Let’s do this!”

And so we did.

Compared to moving up to the ledge we had used the past few days, climbing up the slope was an order of magnitude harder, forcing us to move carefully and separately, making sure that one of us was always braced. It took almost an hour to crawl up the mountain and by the time we got up there, both of us had a few scrapes and scratches, especially on our hands, wrists and knees, but luckily, nothing truly dangerous had happened. Climbing down would be another challenge but for now, the strange structures had my full attention.

After climbing up some twenty metres, even I had been able to clearly distinguish them, making me marvel at Wera’s eyesight. Further up, both of us realised that what we were seeing wasn’t just some structure but an opening and from that point, the idea of turning back was utterly gone, we wanted to find out what was going on. An almost certainly unnatural structure that led deeper into the mountain? If that wasn’t something we would check out, we could head back to town, hang up our trainer hats and give out Pokémon to someone more adventurous and suitable to take care of them.

The last bit of distance, when we were able to clearly see the goal in front of our eyes, the entrance just two metres above our head, was the hardest. Instead of slowly crawling up the slope, we had to actually climb a wall, the rocks sharp and not yet weathered away by wind and rain, making it easy to put your hands on them.

After a brief moment of discussion, I went first, with Wera carefully helping me, her height allowing me to support me easily until I crawled into the opening. Inside the mountain, it was completely dark, the only light coming through the same hole I was coming through. It took some twisting and even stepping on Wera’s hand to sit in the opening, realising that the wall that had been broken through was almost half a metre thick and strangely made. The material looked quite uniform, a slate-grey rock quite unlike the other rocks of the area, though I had no idea where the difference came from. Unable to see further in and unwilling to simply let myself drop to an unknown fate, I sent out Charm, hoping that nothing bad would happen.

He appeared in the usual flash of red, the flame on his tale instantly illuminating the area, leaving me gawping at the surroundings.

The floor was maybe thirty centimetres below me, perfectly smooth rock, the same slate-grey I was sitting on, but what truly shocked me was that the chamber was large enough that even Charm’s flame wasn’t enough to fully illuminate it. The ceiling was easily some eight, maybe even ten, metres above, the walls far off in the distance.

“I’ll crawl in,” I warned Wera, letting myself fall back, as Charm supported me to crawl in. Once inside, I braced myself, pulling the rope taunt and even having Charm take hold of me, before calling out to Wera, “Okay, I’m braced, you can climb,” I told her, and felt a bit of weight on the rope was she started to make her way up.

It didn’t take her long to climb but her entrance was even more clumsy than mine. While I had more or less fallen through the opening, Wera had to crawl and squeeze, her broad frame barely fitting through without going sideways. Charm and I had to help, or she might have gotten stuck and ultimately, both of us landed on the ground, gasping for breath and trying not to laugh from the situation.

“Well, that was fun,” I snarked, pushing myself up.

“Not quite the dynamic entry into the exploration business one might expect,” Wera replied, before starting to look around, her voice fading away as she let out an awed sigh.

“Just what is this?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

“No idea,” I admitted, trying to see if I noticed anything recognisable, “But let’s find out,” I grinned, calling out to Charm, “Let’s go, buddy, we’ll stick to the wall, that way we won’t get lost.”

“Left hand on the wall, right?” Wera asked, to which I nodded. That way, if we wanted to go back, we just had to turn around and put the right hand to the wall and keep going until we got back. Given that we had no idea just what this structure was, being cautious sounded like a wise move.

“Let’s go, stick behind me,” I told Wera, before giving Charm a nod as he started moving forward, his flame illuminating this strange, ancient place.