Wandering down the steep slope for a while, Lucien came to a familiar cavern. The high ceilings were still high, and the lower areas were still low. The pool that he had dubbed the crystal pond was as serene and pristine as usu— Huh? Lucien squinted, at first believing that his eyes betrayed him.

Wandering over to the water’s edge, however, he found that there was, in fact, something reflecting in it. Battered and worse for wear, the Strange Souvenir had seen better days, but having come from Alola, Lucien did, in fact, recognize it. “What’s dis doin’….???” He looked up and around wondering if it might have dropped from one of the various holes and tubes that made up these tunnels. Unfortunately, he saw nothing that really resembled that. Hesitantly, he lifted up the relic and turned it over in his hands. Oh man it wasn’t disintegrating or anything! Awesome! He’d just keep this then!

Storing the item away for later, Lucien righted himself again and started to look around the cavern again. He wandered lazily through the chamber taking in the formations and occasionally noting how they hadn’t seemed to change— not that he really expected them to all that much if at all but yeah? Heh, after a bit, however, he’d start down a tunnel way furthering his trek into the depths. The darker it got, the more Lucien relied on his aura sight. He’d been training after all, so… might as well make it the best he could? Every little bit counted. OMPH! He stumbled, stopped, righted himself, and continued on. He was good! He was good, he swore!

It was after a short walk that something would catch his aura senses. The remnants of something or other had left the wall aglow, and as he stopped to examine it, Lucien would find that the rock was actually loose. Pulling it away from the rest of it, he stared down at it. Huh, well it certainly wasn’t a Z-crystal or anything, and he didn’t think it was a Mega Stone so?? Was this one of those gem things? Well, he’d pocket it and hope for it later, yep.

As he continued down his trek, Lucien became aware of smaller traces of aura here and there. Something had come by down the tunnel not too long ago, and vaguely, he wondered what it had been. He had Pokemon with him should he need to battle, but so far nothing had crossed paths with him.

A much-later thought occurred to him, and he fished out a Pokeball to release Rio, his Riolu. The pup bounced up and down offering a wild grin. Lucien flashed a smile back and shrugged his shoulders. “Ya wanna do s’m aura searchin?” he asked. The Riolu yipped and turned his head forward, extending his aura sensors, and searching for anything of interest. Lucien snorted softly and closed his eyes focusing on the passage way around them with his mind.

Mwa? Rio? Before Lucien had found anything, the Riolu had. Bounding forward and down the tunnel, the puppy Pokemon sought out whatever it was and fished it up from the ground once he had it. Walking over slower, Lucien smirked a bit taking it from him and twisting it around in his hand. Well, it was very spherical and felt vaguely Mega Stone-y. “Noice ‘ne Rio,” he grinned nodding a bit. The Riolu nodded back.

Thereafter the two were off again, wandering down the tunnel way and searching out interesting items with their aura senses. Occasionally, Rio would point out obscure items that weren’t really worth picking up but had Lucien stopping to stare anyways. Every time he found something of reasonable interest, however, the pup got a head pat. In this way they went on for about an hour until it was Lucien’s turn to sense something first. He.. admittedly almost overlooked it considering it was spherical and vaguely ‘felt’ like a boulder, but as he got closer to it and became more and more aware of it, he finally stopped and actually checked it out.

Woah, wait hang on??? This ?? Was it really gold or like pyrite maybe? He couldn’t tell in the dim light nor could his aura senses adequately differentiate one from the other. Still, if it was truly gold, he’d hit the jackpot and they’d surely be eating well for a couple of weeks! And if not— er… well, he could get by just fine on what he was making from breeding, but it wouldn’t be near as exciting. Putting the gold in his bag, he went on again with the Riolu in tow.