Dinner at Professor Carolina’s place had been a wonderful affair. Amusingly, the addition of four younger people made it a little less lifely, with Cynthia and Joyce acting as responsible elders, not their usual, playful selves, while Claire, Lucas, Cliff and Wera were utterly cowed by Cynthia’s presence, barely daring to speak and most certainly not willing or able to make jokes.

Regardless of the sombre atmosphere, or maybe because of it, the dinner was more akin to a lesson where food was served, a lesson where all of us learned quite a bit. Joyce had been occasionally talking to Wera, the two of them slowly working on the mental barrier in Wera’s mind, trying to figure out where her resistance to Poké-battles came from. As Joyce put it, it was one thing to be hesitant due to compassion for your partners, it was another to be frightened to the point that your partners would suffer. To say nothing about you suffering yourself.

But that would be a long-term project, mostly borne by Wera, with little others could do to help.

A similar long-term project was the investigation into the ruins. Now that they had been found, trying to ascertain their purpose, maybe even finding a few relics that hadn’t been taken and investigating what had been would take a long time. From what Cynthia had told me earlier, it would likely fall to some of the most experienced trainers, those who had participated in the last League Conference, to figure out what was going on, especially those who had Pokémon trained to teleport between towns, like Cynthia’s Porygon was. Not something we should actively try to stick our noses into, though she stressed that any extraordinary discoveries should be reported.

Finally, during the end of the dinner, Lucas, Claire, Cliff and I were discussing future plans. Once again, the question was where we wanted to travel next. To go north or not.

Sadly, I could do little more than affirm that I wanted to travel to Snowpoint, not just for the badge but also to investigate the strange rumours and stories about the Lake Guardian and the potential path to unlock my memories.

Surprisingly, the others needed only very little convincing, apparently, they had already discussed the issue while they were doing their task and now, they agreed that travelling north was the thing to do. I wasn’t quite sure what had convinced them but at the end of the day, it didn’t matter too much. We would soon travel north and that was good enough for me. Our plan was to finish up everything in Celestic Town on the next day and buy all the needed supplies for our long trek north before moving on at daybreak the day after.

Cynthia and Joyce gave us a lot of advice and information, especially regarding a waystation, just a single house, manned and supplied by a few more experienced trainers roughly one-third of the way north, in the northern foothills of the Coronal Mountains. Without knowing about it, or getting told which landmarks to follow, it would be incredibly difficult to find. They even told us about a few good spots to camp on the way and shared their experience, making it obvious that they had travelled the route before, likely more than once. It made me wonder why they hadn’t just used a flying Pokémon to traverse the distance, or even used teleport, but that was something they didn’t share. When I asked, Cynthia simply shook her head, an amused smile on her face, while Joyce blushed brightly.

Joyce even told us a few stories about Candice, the Gym-leader of Snowpoint and from the look on Cynthia’s face, she didn’t approve. Given the content of those stores, mostly around Candice pestering and challenging Cynthia, I could understand Cynthia’s reluctance but at the same time, I noticed a faint grin on Cynthia’s face, as if there was something more to the story. I wasn’t about to ask, not with the outward display of disapproval, but I was most certainly curious.

Finally, maybe to shut Joyce up, Cynthia began pestering her Grandmother to tell us the story about the Snowpoint Temple, one of the oldest, still maintained buildings in Sinnoh, maybe one that was as old as the complex Wera and I had found. It was a fascinating story, including the tale that one of the boulders in the basement was actually an ancient Pokémon, though nobody had ever managed to get that boulder to move - or to damage it, even when quite powerful Pokémon had tried. That alone was evidence that there was something more to it, but what more, nobody could tell. Some of the artwork around it spoke of creation, but creation of a different kind from the creation displayed by Arceus, a more personal creation. A myth, but not one that could be solved over dinner. At least not by us.

Finally, dinner wound down and I spent one more night at Professor Carolina’s place, a small part of my heart feeling reluctant to leave.

The next day went exactly as planned, with some research in the Gym and at the Pokécentre, to make sure there were no problems with the route we planned to travel. There were a few interesting things, reports of increased Pokémon activity that might serve as decent training, a few about difficult route conditions and some that mentioned damaged water sources, but ultimately, there was nothing that would truly hinder our journey. We’d have to pay attention and be careful, but given the trip, that was a given. What I found a little amusing was that, despite it being early summer, we had to worry about winter catching us off-guard. The climate north of the Coronal Mountains sounded incredibly rough, where mid-autumn might already bring deadly snowstorms that you wouldn’t want to be caught up in. But that was to be considered later.

Lucas and I collected quite a bit of information before Claire and Cliff joined us and we began working with a few local trainers to determine a route that would give us the best experience, both in terms of training our Pokémon and in terms of the actual travel. We all had somewhat different interests, Claire for one wanted to check out a particular valley that was supposedly home to quite a few Snowers in order to catch one, and ultimately, we wanted a Route that would get us to Snowpoint quickly and somewhat safely while covering as much of those interests as possible.

That needed some careful planning and risk assessment, as we had to choose which areas were too dangerous to travel through and had to be avoided and which shortcuts we could take. While there was an official Route, by the time we were done, the route we planned to travel would allow us to cut almost a week off our journey, simply by travelling through a few more dangerous areas. Without mountains to force us along a certain path, there were many routes to travel.

In addition, I went to the clinic at the Pokécentre, having Joyce and the local attendants give me one more check-up, simply to be on the safe side. The topical wounds on my body had healed to the point that only a few scabs and a couple of faint marks remained, so that was fine. On the other hand, the ‘change to my energy’ was still inconclusive and there was just nothing to be done about it. There were ways to measure the energy, which they had done, but to determine if, when or how any extraordinary changes would manifest was impossible.

Due to that, staying in town was advised by the attendants, simply to be on the safe side, while Joyce could only shrug, agreeing that it was safer to be in town but that in reality, it didn’t matter much. Unless I was willing to stay in towns for the rest of my life, the risk was basically the same. Either something would happen outside, or it wouldn’t, nothing to be done about it.

With such confidence, I wished the two attendants the best but decided that there really was no reason to delay our travels further. I promised that I would give them a report if something changed if I got some ribbon-like feelers or something like that but unless I started to glow and evolve into Danniette or something like that, I would just continue on with my life.

Finally, it was the morning of our departure. In the evening, I had said my farewell to Professor Carolina, Cynthia and Joyce, so I wouldn’t disturb them when we got up at dawn and spent that final night in the Pokécentre’s hostel.

Contrary to my good intentions, when we got near the town’s gate, the three of them, alongside Wera, were waiting to see us off. There were many well-wishes and hugs shared, before the four of us headed out, the rising sun illuminating Celestic Town behind us as we were setting out to the next leg of our journey.