After joy came relief, and tears. A weight we had not realized we carried had just lifted. We... We are free... We are safe. For a time, we are finally safe! We let go of each over, still smiling, still crying. We are free.

The sound of someone clearing her throat snaps us from our bout of euphoria. Princess' stern gaze reminds us quickly that we are still in her domain. We believe all has gone according to thine expectations? We shall observe our forest for the next few days, as well as prepare to formally introduce thee to the residents of the forest. Aide, show them where they may rest. She calls out to the zoroark.

The grey upright vulpine its long red mane nods and gestures for us to follow. We thank you for your generosity, your highness. What we have obtained today... it is far more than we could have hoped for. Mewtwo thanks the royal florges. I do not think you truly realize how much this matters to us.

Nor do we truly care strange one. Now go, we have matters to attend to. Princess ends the conversation, turning around and leaving to another part of the forest.

I bow to the florges, silently thanking her as well. She spares a quick glance, and huffs before floating away.

The zoroark guides us through the forest. Even with the day still barely past midday, the atmosphere beneath the canopy is cast in shadows. Yet as our eyes adapt to the darkness. The strange lights of the magical forest are a constant source of illumination, both eerie and comforting at the same time. Mushrooms glow with iridescent colors, lichen lights tree bark, and little wisps of light flutter all around us. We traverse the woods unbothered, spotting pokemons here and there, and even, surprisingly, animals. Before I can wonder too much, we arrive upon a clearing, and within is something I had not expected to find: a house.

Nestled between the trees, occupying a little clearing, is a cozy little cottage. Its timber roofs offers shade to the plank walls. The entire structure looks small and well built, but little defects can be seen here and there. This was handmade, and Aster's memories confirms it. He built it, with help from his team. This was their rest and training area whenever Aster died and returned. I wonder if they made it before or after establishing the Sanctuary... Ah, after. Got it.

As we approach, the door opens and out comes pokemons. First are a couple of spinaraks. The green six legged spiders exit along the walls, chased by a angry sounds from a pokemon still inside. Next, still cussing and clearly angry, is an ambipom. The purple and beige monkey is clearly agitated, jumping from one foot to the other, screeching at the fleeing and laughing spiders. Even the faces on the spiders abdomens are styled in a mocking face.

Once they are gone, the monkey deflates, the two long tails, with large three-fingered hands at their tips, falling down in surrender. He then notices us and his anger is replaced with anxiety. Neither Mewtwo nor I understand what just happened, but the trembling zoroark next to us seems to indicate this is a rather common occurrence.

Getting his mirth under control, the zoroark approches the ambipom, and takes a look at the inside of the house. The ambipom fidgets as we approach. A few growls and grunts are exchanged and the ambipom bows down, leaving soon after. I can see he is still crestfallen at the situation, but I still have no idea what the situation even is.

We approach the door, and finally behold the interior.

Ah... I see... everything, and I do mean everything, inside is covered in cobwebs. If we ignore the threads going from floor to ceiling, we can make out the little furniture that occupy the cottage. The entire interior seems to be divided in three room. The front door opens into a living room, with a fireplace made of stone on the right, and a wall with two doors on the left. Both doors are closed and covered in webbing. In the room proper are a couple of tables along the opposite wall, with shelves above them. A lot of furniture, like papers, books, and even writing implements are scattered all over them. In the center, a large and battered table stands alone, with seven chairs surrounding it. Five are in good condition, but two bear signs of damage. One has burn marks along its back, and another has marks of strains on its legs, as if something heavy had tried to sit on it at some point. On the right side, right of the fire place, is a kitchen space, although there is little in terms of modern amenities. No sink or stove here. Windows along each walls allows for the forest light to filter in, giving the place a melancholic look.

The zoroark, still smirking at the situation, invites us in. We enter and look around. The threads are sticky, but only I am affected, as Mewtwo simply floats above them all. The talons on my feet easily slice the threads they touch, but those I step on stick to my metallic soles.

The zoroark grunts toward Mewtwo. Really? Then please carry our thanks to her highness. I am sure this residence will do nicely for our time here. Mewtwo answers him.

The zoroark bows down, still smirking, and takes his leave, leaving us alone in our new home for a time.

We will need to do some cleaning first. Mewtwo declares, looking around. How did they manage to put threads hanging from these two corners?

"Walked on the ceiling?" I suggest.

Yeah, they may be spiders, but some of these threads must have been tricky to weave around. I wonder if I can collect them.

With that, we start to clean our new residence. The work is hard, and time slowly ticks by. As we work, I put the clock display on. Finally! Timekeeping! We start at around one in the afternoon, and slowly make our way in tearing and removing the threads. Mewtwo's psychic blade quickly proves invaluable in removing the threads. I join him as well, but my efforts mostly end up destroying the threads. Once me finally free the doors from their weaved prisons, we get access to two more rooms, both thankfully thread-free. One is a large bedroom, with a spartan futon directly on the ground. One of the walls has been changed to a large sliding door, leaving direct access to a patio outside. the floor is covered in a surprisingly well maintained pale green carpet. I guess Aster slept with his whole team.

The second room reveals itself as a storage area. Boxes, chests and barrels occupy most of the space. Most are empty, although we do find cleaning tools inside one of the chests. With them, we continue our mission. Neither of us know why we are even cleaning this house. It felt like a silent agreement. The moment we were left alone in this house, we just knew, we had to thoroughly clean it. This goes beyond just removing the threads, as even when we are done with them, we then rearrange the books, dust the shelves and deep clean the entire house. This must be another remnant of both Aster and the two team members that make up Mewtwo. I wonder who they were.

Our cleaning frenzy has the afternoon pass in a flash. Soon we go into the early evening. With one final psychic push from Mewtwo, we are done. The house is clean. Every nooks and crannies have been touched. Not a single thread of spider silk remains. Most are in my inventory, only the few that I tried to remove by hand have been thrown into the pile of garbage we made outside. I whistle in contentment, that was some good work.

I take two chairs outside, and we both sit down, to rest a bit. Mine does creak a bit when I put my weight on it, but it holds. My power reserves are still comfortably filled, and Mewtwo does not feel hungry right now. So we sit, looking at the magical forest surrounding us. Mewtwo ends up dozing off soon enough, and I simply watch on. I see few pokemons moving around, most seem to retreat pretty fast when they spot me. I am still human shaped, and therefore a potential danger. It saddens me, but there is not much I can do right now. I hope Princess speech and presentation will resolve, or at least help resolve that issue.

The sound of something heavy sliding on the ground disturbs the silence, and I look at its source in curiosity. A swalot approaches our little clearing. The pokemon looks like a smooth purple mound with, darker colored diamond shapes decorating the base of its body. Their red eyes, above two short yellow whiskers, freeze when they realize I heard him. Atop their head, a little green gulpin snores gently.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

We look at each others for a minute before I finally break the silence. "Can I... help you?" I whisper, hoping to neither scare them or wake both Mewtwo and the little gulpin.

The swalot wobble a bit, as if unsure on how to react. Then they points with one of their blobby three fingered hand. What they point at is the pile of garbage we left next to the house. Oh. "You want our garbage?" I ask to confirm the meaning of gesture.

They nod, although not much to avoid dislodging the little gulpin on their head. "Okay, go ahead," I acquiesce.

I watch from the corner of my eyes as they slide toward the big pile of dust, broken part and threads. There was a lot of weird trash lying around in the storage room. Mostly broken wood, useless to me sadly. I tried to put them in my inventory, but it came out the same way it went in. Broken, and unusable. So we threw it all out.

The swalot nudges the little gulpin, and the green blob stirs gently. They yawn and double in height as they open their mouth. I look on in astonishment. The yellow feather atop the gulpin head goes straight up as he notices me, but the swalot is quick to reassure them. I should have done that earlier, but I take a peek at their WAYLA descriptions. Both females, both with levels below a hundred. Although at his level, the gulpin should have evolved. I'll need to research the signification of levels at some point. Although... the Trio did say there were discrepancies between the numbers and the reality. More to look into anyway.

The little gulpin slides down the swalot, and makes her way toward the pile. She looks around for some time, before settling on a side. She once more opens her mouth wide, and swallows a big gulp of the pile. A third of it is now gone. The swalot asks her something in pokespeak, and she answers. The swalot nods at the answer, and swallows what remains of the pile. Both pokemons give me a little bow, as much as blobs can bow, and slowly exit the clearing. The spot where we left the pile is now spotless. I nod to myself, impressed.

With the little distraction gone, I return to my forest watching. The sound of birds, insects, and moving branches fills the silence, along with Mewtwo's gentle snores. I look at him. He is still seated, with his head slumped forward, stretching his second neck a bit. His thin arms are crossed upon his purple belly. Both his legs are spread wide. With his pear morphology it makes sense. He managed to have his tail pass in the space between the backrest and the base of the chair. It slaps the ground gently at random intervals. He looks so peaceful at this moment. So peaceful in fact, that a little blue and white bird lands upon his second neck.

It is not a pokemon. It is a bird, an animal. I observe it for some time, curious. Mewtwo stirs a bit, but does not wakes up. The bird's head swivel around, its beady eyes locking on me for a second, before looking around some more. His header is simply marked as ' Blue jay'. It hops from Mewtwo's second neck to his head, looks around some more, then flies off. Mewtwo snorts in his sleep, but does not wake up. This is not the first time I saw this, yet I cannot help but wonder. How are real animals able to exist along pokemons? I remember the cows in the orchard, and I still wonder how they coexist.

Maybe it is Eziakophael doing? Maybe neither sides see each others? Or something else? I sigh, whatever the answer is, I will not have it anytime soon. Unless... I wait expectantly, but nothing happens, not blue screen, no achievement screen. Although... I open the tutorial section, looking through all the new entries we have unlocked. I have time after all.

My search is only partially fruitful. I find entries about the Ezian plane wildlife, mostly explaining that pokemons are not native to the Ezian plane, but anything else is, even the monsters that appear at night. Although some also originate from Eziakophael personal additions. Wildlife has a chance to spontaneously return to a place it once occupied. After some time, they can just 'respawn'. The mechanic is vague and badly explained. The way they worded the whole explanation, it feels like a voluntary effort to obscure the true mechanic behind how everything 'spawns' on the Ezian plane.

I continue my readings, exploring other sections I have barely touched, if ever. I find out both the cow and blue jay have entries in the 'Fauna' subsection of the 'Exploration and Survival' section. Both have a detailed description of the species along with ways to care, hunt or even tame and domesticate them. I look in surprise at the latter ones. I would have needed seeds to possibly earn the blue jay trust. Uh. Wheat would have made the cow follow me around. Letting a cow and, I presume a bull, the name is censored for some reason, would allow them to attempt to mate.

There seems to be a lot of strange mechanics around the Ezian plane, and we should familiarize ourselves with them as fast as possible. Evening is coming now, I cannot see the sun, but my clock display is capital, the sun is setting within the Sanctuary. Outside, time has barely moved. Merely thirty minutes have passed. I am pretty happy to finally have a way to see time pass, and Aster's side is also happy to finally be able to really tell the time.

Mewtwo finally stirs, waking from his nap. He looks around blearily, blinking multiple times before stretching and yawning. His back pops at multiple places, and he sigh contently. He lean back against the chair, making it creak a bit.

"Nice nap?" I ask him with a smile.

Better than the last two, that is for sure. He answers jovially. Did I miss something?

"Nah, a swalot and a gulpin ate our trash, and I have been reading while you slept."

Did you find anything interesting?

"Mostly about animal reproduction and daily life. I read some tutorial entries as well, but they were mostly vague." I then show the entries, letting him read them.

Indeed. While it is interesting to see such strange creatures in the Ezian plane beside pokemons, the way they can just... appear, seems strange. I wonder why they are trying to hide how they do that.

"I know right? Why is it so vague?" I complain.

Maybe we can ask them during another trial? Speaking of, do we have access to those now?

"You... want to do another trial?" Then again, he has a point, the trials are supposed to help us grow stronger and obtain massive rewards. So doing them should be important. "You know what? Let's check."

I open all three quest tabs for each members of the Trio. Trials are now available in both Knowledge and Hunt section. The ones in Chaos section are still greyed for some reason.

"Should we..." I hoover over one of Hunt's trial. Why hers? Because it has the least foreboding name of all.

Mewtwo wince, then nods. Nothing risked, nothing gained.

Cautiously, I click it, but instead of getting instantly pulled into a trial as we feared, we get a little description of the trial.

First Trial of the Hunter:

Test your wits and reflexes. Hunt me down and claim your prize.

But careful now to take too long, for ressources are scarce within my space.

Goals: Hunt me, catch me!

Rewards: 500xp, 2 Exp. Candy L, the meat of your prey.

[Enter Trial]

Uh... Was the no escaping until death only for the previous one or will we be stuck hunting Hunt until we succeed? Mewtwo echoes my worries and we quickly look at the tutorial section for the trials. Yep, it's one way until we succeed. We will need to prepare ourselves well then.

Before we can look at other trials, a noise makes us look up from our screens. The ambipom is back, with a large basket on held with his tail hands. They, hold on a minute, HE waves at us, and approaches. Once he reaches us, he bows to us, speaking as if trying to apologize. I understand nothing, and Mewtwo quickly tells me he is apologizing for the state the cottage was left in. He then pumps himself and strides toward the door of the little house, a resolute expression on his face. Before either me or Mewtwo can stop the resolute purple monkey, he opens the door, and freeze.

He blink in incomprehension. Then turns toward us, and back to the inside. He makes a questioning noise, and Mewtwo nods, looking a bit embarrassed. This causes the monkey to bow down repetitively, as he apologizes again and again. We both try to placate him, but nothing seems to work. In the end, he only calms down once we accept his apologies.

The ambipom then points at the basket, once more deflated, and explains that he brought us food. Berries as well as fruits and vegetables. He specifies for me that most are raw, but can be eaten as is. We thank him and look at the contents of the basket. Multiple colorful berries fill it, along with fruits and vegetables. Mewtwo takes an oran eat it whole. I look at the content with curiosity. Do I eat now? Or do I store them for later...

Seeing my indecision, the ambipom says that there is more if this is insufficient. I raise an eyebrow at that and thank him, telling him it is enough for today. The purple monkey, finally looking relieved to have done a task correctly today bow to us once more and saunter away into the forest.

Mewtwo grabs another berry and swallows it quickly, and I decide to join him, picking up a tomato and eating it as is. The evening turns into night, we silently enjoy our dinner.