Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Seasons of Heaven

Episode 7: The First Callout

"I-it really is... gods, is this a joke?" She whispered, pulling her badge out.

Lute laughed eagerly and sprinted for the nearest cover beside a building. Holding the badge out before him, he pressed the button with a hearty shout, "browse!"

The map of Aseria appeared before them via a holographic projection. It was basic in terms of showing the land and sea, but was detailed in terms of labels and measurements, as well as being coloured in correctly. Part of the map blinked with a sonar pattern, then the screen zoomed into that location, showing a panoramic view of the exact area the signal was coming from.

"That's Den City. It looks like the nature reserve that Mum mentioned," Lute stated.

"Wow, you grasped that quick. But there's no message on the callout. Maybe they're just testing that it's working?" Sophitia said. She slipped her badge back into her bag. "Geez, right when school starts. What a joke."

"I would've thought you'd want to get away from school. It didn't seem like you enjoyed the place," Lute commented.

"Eh, I just think it's bad of them to go back on their word like this. We do have lives you know. C'mon, let's go sort this out," she looked around. "Uh, it'll take us a while to get there, right?"

"Not if we use the Deposit Box. There's one right here, right outside the school," Lute called out, already several steps ahead.

He was by the very tool they needed, a curious safe with odd, circular patterns of purple and gold decorating it. With gears on all four sides and a small, touch-sensitive screen on its side, it was the definition of out of place. It was out of the way of the school's entrance, off to the side and away from the eyes of the obvious.

"They said we just have it scan our badges, and it'll take us to the nearest agent base," he recalled.

"How didn't I see this thing before? And somehow, I was expecting the box to look different. But they're the same as ever," she smiled as she joined him. Lute continued to fiddle with the screen for a moment, froze, and then snapped to look up at her. "What?"

"What you just said."

"What about it?"

"You know what a Deposit Box is? You said that as if you've seen one before," he gasped.

"Oh c'mon, everyone knows what a Deposit Box is. It's just something that's jogging my memory of small details, nothing important," she rolled her eyes.

"I don't think so. Maybe where you come from, there are lots of Deposit Boxes. This is the only one in Everend, so barely anyone uses it besides travellers. I don't even have anything stored in it," Lute explained and returned to the screen. "Here we are, user sign-in via pawprint. If I just press the badge onto it now..."

Sophitia tilted her head as she warily stepped around him. She knew what the box was: a convenient storage for travellers that was placed in various locations all over the world, particularly outside of mystery dungeons. If you put something important inside one, you can take it out from any of the boxes in the world, and only you could do that, like some sort of digital storage for real-world items. It was a magical piece of tech that was a godsend to everyone.

But a screen? Pawprint scanning? Despite the box looking as she remembered, that was all new to her, so she refused to touch it. She was surprised when the box reacted to whatever Lute did to it, opening up to reveal a transparent, rainbow light from within. She was frightened, but Lute's excitement seemed to explode.

"That's the same portal as a Warp Orb. It worked!" he cheered. "C'mon Sophitia, let's jump in."

"We have to jump in that?" she squeaked.