Several days passed without incident. Spontaneous searches throughout the Grass Continent turned up nothing, and perhaps by chance, the team was not able to find this mysterious Shadowed village at all. There were several reports of Pokemon looking a little antsier than usual, particularly in Baram Town and Shaymin Village, but it was never anything to investigate directly. It was difficult to analyze some of the towns even for Diyem, because the distortions of lingering Dungeons obscured whatever he could find. They still needed time.
On one of the days, Wigglytuff reported that Bidoof was taking longer than usual to return from his searches. And while that was typical of him at times, and nobody thought anything of it after one day, concerns rose when two passed. Pine and Nanab, still on their spontaneous searching spree, took up the mission of searching for him and reporting back.
...And then they, too, did not return.
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"Thank you all for coming," Maple announced to the group. "This is an emergency meeting. Pine and Nanab have been searching for Bidoof, as you know, and have not returned. It has been two days, we traced their steps, and we can confirm that they have gone to their destination and simply did not return." She lowered her head, thoughtful. "They went to Shaymin Village."
Excuse me? Diyem said.
I searched Shaymin Village myself, at least, as far as my distortions would allow... It is right near a Dungeon, so I can only see the peripherals, but there was no trace of Shadows inside.
Owen quickly translated this for Maple, who nodded. "And I sent Soda, Flesh, and Truffle all to search that village very early on. They spotted nothing suspicious."
Grr... It was placed somewhere I assumed was safe, and even after a closer scout, nothing turned up? Is there a corruption hidden deeper inside? Or is this just a false alarm?
"I see no reason," Maple said after Owen repeated Diyem. "Pine and Nanab wouldn't leave outright for something like this and stay away for longer than predicted unless something went wrong. I think we shouldn't be cautious about this; all of you need to go to investigate."
"We didn't see anything in the main village, so it might be somewhere deeper," Soda remarked. "Guess we can ask the Shaymin there, but..."
"I'm not sure what we will see, but once everyone enters, I will try to assist... if it's possible." Maple nodded, then looked to the others, who felt similarly.
