| abstract | - Screech and I spent a couple of days traveling to this "Iron Mountain" place. Whenever I asked him why we were going to a mountain, he just told me, "You'll see when we get there." On the fourth day, I could see a mountain in the distance. "Is that Iron Mountain?" I asked Screech. "Yep!" he replied. "If we move fast enough, we might be able to reach the foot of the mountain by sunset, then spend tomorrow climbing it until we reach the town." "Town?" "I'll explain later. Let's go." As we got closer to Iron Mountain, I realized that there were some dark shapes flying and moving around the summits. "What up with the Pokémon on the mountain?" "Those are the citizens of Guild Town," Screech said. "They're super-friendly, and a lot of them are members of Rescue and Exploration Teams. Guild Town had this big building called the Guild, where you can join and create Teams. The Guild is what gave the town its name." "So why are we going there?" I asked. "On the night that I found you, I had received a letter from my old friends Zonic and Trap," Screech explained. "They said that Team Golddiggers, a Treasure-Hunting Team, is planning to mine in a cave of crystals---by using dynamite." "So? Lots of miners use dynamite to mine stuff." "I know, but the cave where Team Golddiggers wants to mine is located high up on Stretch Summit, and if they use dynamite there, they'll end up causing an avalanche. This wouldn't be anything for us to worry about if Guild Town wasn't right at the foot of Stretch Summit." "Well, how come no one will tell Team Golddiggers that they'll cause an avalanche if they use dynamite there?" "Zonic and Trap said in their letter that they and several other Pokémon already told Team Golddiggers that using dynamite to mine those crystals will cause an avalanche. But the leader's rather greedy, and the other members blindly follow his orders, so the warning was about as effective as using Thunderbolt on a Krookodile." "So, we're going there to help Zonic and Trap stop Team Golddiggers from blowing up the cave?" "Uh-huh." Suddenly, Screech stopped and held still. "Um...Screech? You OK?" I asked nervously, looking back at him. "Quiet," he whispered. "I'm trying to listen." I kept quiet as Screech just stood there, occasionally looking around. I always followed his gaze, but there was never anything there. After a long while, Screech finally breathed a sigh of relief. "It's ok. They're gone now," he said. "Who's gone? Why'd you freeze like that?" I asked. "There's a team of thieves called Team Robbers that lives around here," said Screech as we started walking again. "They jump anyone they can find and steal whatever they're carrying---Poké, Evolutionary Stones, Berries, you name it. They'd definitely steal our amulets, this spear, and the stuff in the toolbox to sell them online and make a quick buck." "Ok, I'll keep that in mind." As it turns out, we reached the foot of Iron Mountain about an hour and a half before sunset. "Do you think we can reach Guild Town before sunset?" I asked. "Sure, I guess, if we leave now," Screech answered. We started climbing up the mountain, scaling it like pros. It was a little hard to get a grip on the rocks, what with me carrying a heavy toolbox and everything, but other than that it was pretty easy. Whenever we found a ledge, we stopped climbing and rested on it for a little bit, then kept going. It was actually dark by the time we finally scrambled over a ledge and Screech said, "We're here." "Finally," I gasped in relief. I pulled myself up over the ledge and looked at Guild Town. It was small, not exactly like how I pictured it, and all the buildings were made of wood, cloth, thatch, and, in a few places, stone. Some were just big tents that looked like Pokémon. There was no one in sight. I pulled Screech up over the ledge and asked him, "So where are Zonic and Trap?" "I don't know," he said. "They said they'd meet me here in the letter, but I don't see them anywhere." "What do they look like?" "Zonic's an Amaura, but he's green with purple sails, cyan crystals, yellow eyes, and he's always got a giant white bandage wrapped around his neck. Trap's a Cranidos with dirty yellow scales, grey eyes that look almost robotic, and part of the rightmost spike on his head is broken off." "Ok, I'll let you know if I see them."
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