Poke Fun PlayThe Sableye Crystal Promise
Sableye finds the brightest crystal in the cavern and gives its shine a name. Taking it home reveals that some treasures have already found a place to belong.
Something brighter
Sableye kept its favorite stones in a hollow halfway up the cavern wall. There was a smoky pebble shaped like a pear, a green shard that caught light from almost any angle, and a little piece of quartz with a bubble trapped inside. It rearranged them often. The quartz went in front when visitors came, because everyone wanted to inspect the bubble.
Visitors were usually Carbink from the deeper chambers, or the Roggenrola that lived beside the underground stream. Carbink admired the collection politely. Roggenrola admired almost nothing with its eyes, preferring the small vibrations that told it where the cavern was solid and where water ran behind a wall. Sableye liked them both, though neither seemed to understand the importance of finding something brighter than yesterday's discovery.
Beyond the stream stood a dark stone arch. Sableye had passed it hundreds of times, but a recent fall of loose grit exposed a gleam near its base. At first it looked like water reflecting a distant crystal. Sableye crouched beside it and found a real stone, pale gold and clear enough to hold a tiny picture of the whole cavern inside its facets.
It called the stone Sunrise. There was no sunrise underground, but Sableye had seen the upper entrance brighten on summer mornings. This crystal looked like all those mornings compressed into something it could carry. It imagined Sunrise at the center of its hollow, the green shard and smoky pebble arranged around it. Even Carbink would stop being polite and stare.
The crystal was lodged between two slabs at the arch's base. Sableye tugged gently. It moved, but a rasp traveled through the stone above. Roggenrola, resting near the stream, turned toward the sound. Carbink emerged from a side chamber and drifted closer. Sableye showed them the gleam, expecting admiration. Carbink looked at the narrowing space over the crystal instead.
Roggenrola pressed its feet against the ground. It tapped once, then shifted toward a low passage beyond the arch. The passage led to a chamber where several young Carbink rested. Loose grit trickled onto its entrance. Sableye paused. The crystal was holding a small wedge of stone in position. That wedge, in turn, rested against the arch. Removing one pretty thing might move several very ordinary things.
Sableye withdrew its hands and sat back. Carbink relaxed. It seemed simple then: the stone had a purpose, and purposes were important. Yet when the two companions returned to their evening routines, Sunrise remained visible between the slabs, glowing in the cavern's quiet light. Sableye climbed to its hollow and looked at its collection. The bubble in the quartz had never seemed so small.
The stone in the hollow
For two days, Sableye left Sunrise where it was. It visited the arch in the morning and again before resting. Each time it studied the other stones, trying to imagine how little the crystal might matter. The arch had been there a long time. Surely it could hold itself together for a short visit to the hollow. Surely returning the crystal later would be almost the same as never moving it.
On the third evening, it collected a rough pebble from the streambed. The pebble was nearly the same size as Sunrise. Sableye held the two close together and turned the substitute until its narrowest edge faced the gap. It did not fit perfectly, but perfection could not be essential to every stone in a cavern. The thought sounded reasonable mainly because nobody else was there to hear it.
It pulled Sunrise free and pushed the pebble into the space. The wedge above shifted a little. Sableye waited, hands raised. The arch stayed standing. Dust settled along the streambank. That seemed enough. It hurried home, carrying the crystal against its chest, and set it in the center of the hollow. Light spread across the smoky pebble and turned the quartz's tiny bubble into a gold star.
The collection had never looked more beautiful. Sableye moved the green shard to the left, then to the right, then behind Sunrise where its reflection seemed deepest. It thought about fetching Carbink to see. It decided to wait until morning. Explaining a temporary replacement might interrupt the first wonderful moment of admiration, and it wanted that moment to arrive without complications.
A low tremor passed through the wall. The smoky pebble rolled off its shelf. Sableye caught it and listened. Water splashed somewhere below, followed by several quick impacts. It climbed down to the stream and found Roggenrola moving toward the arch. A pile of loose stone blocked half the bank. The replacement pebble had cracked, and the wedge was tilting into the side passage.
Carbink hovered at the passage mouth. Its smaller companions were safely inside, but the entrance was narrowing under scattered fragments. The stream, diverted by the new rubble, pushed against the opposite wall. Sableye saw its beautiful golden reflection in the moving water and realized, with a cold feeling under its ribs, that it had brought Sunrise down with it without even deciding to.
Roggenrola tapped the ground sharply. More grit fell from the arch. Sableye put the crystal on a dry ledge and ran to the passage. Admiration, arrangements, and the careful position of the green shard vanished from its mind. Carbink needed space. The stream needed its channel. Everyone needed a stone that fitted where the cracked pebble had never really belonged.
The shape that fitted
They could not simply push Sunrise back. The wedge had moved, narrowing the gap too much for the crystal's broad end. Sableye cleared the smallest fragments while Carbink guided the young residents away from the passage entrance. Roggenrola tested the ground, marking the places that had begun to tremble. Every scrape of loose stone sounded too loud. Sableye wanted to work faster, but faster hands could disturb the arch again.
A heavy slab had fallen across the stream's old channel. Water climbed behind it, making a dark pool near the passage. Roggenrola pressed against the slab from the shallow side. Sableye joined it, pushing where the edge had caught on gravel. They moved the stone only a short distance, but enough water escaped to lower the pool. The younger Carbink could leave through the remaining opening without meeting the rising stream.
Once everyone was out, Carbink inspected the arch. A broad stone on its far side had settled firmly against the wall; the danger came from the smaller wedge above the gap. If they could support that wedge, Sableye could remove the cracked pebble and slide Sunrise into its original position. The plan required the shape they had already taken away, not another approximate replacement.
Roggenrola found a flat rock on the safe side of the bank. Together they shifted it beneath the wedge until it stood firmly on the floor. It was a temporary support, low and ugly and extremely useful. Carbink hovered close enough to show Sableye which edge of the broken pebble was free. Sableye picked out the fragments one at a time, keeping its body away from the gap above.
Sunrise's broad end fitted first. Then the tapered point slipped under the wedge. Sableye turned it carefully, remembering exactly how it had sat before. The stone above lowered a little and rested against the crystal's strongest facet. A faint click passed through the arch. Roggenrola listened for a long moment before stepping back. No new grit fell. The stream's echo became smooth again.
Sableye left the temporary support in place until the companions had checked the surrounding stones. It did not want a brave-looking ending. It wanted a stable one. Carbink led the young residents along the bank, choosing a safer chamber for the night. Their usual passage would need time and another careful inspection before anyone called it home again. Returning a treasure did not undo every consequence of taking it.
When the work was finished, Sableye sat on the dry ledge. Its hands were dusty. Sunrise shone beneath the arch, half hidden as before. Carbink paused beside it but offered no praise. Sableye did not expect any. It touched the ground near the crystal, then folded its hands away from it. The promise it made had no audience, which made it harder to break into a performance.
What stayed bright
The cavern settled slowly. Over the following days, the stream carried away loose grit, leaving the bank cleaner and slightly changed. Roggenrola inspected the arch each morning. Carbink's smaller companions returned to their chamber only after the passage was clear and the stones remained still. Sableye helped shift rubble. Once, a young Carbink startled at the scrape of a pebble and hurried back into the passage. Sableye put down the stone and waited until the small face appeared again.
It found several pretty fragments in the fallen pile. One was purple, one clear, and one flashed blue when turned toward the stream. It took none of them at first. Carbink looked at the loose pieces, then nudged the blue one toward Sableye. That stone belonged to no support and blocked no route. Sableye accepted it, though it no longer expected every bright object to arrive with permission simply because it was visible.
The blue fragment went into the hollow. Sunrise's empty place stayed empty for a while. Sableye did not rearrange the collection to disguise the gap. The missing brightness reminded it that something could be beautiful without being its possession. Some evenings the thought felt satisfying. Other evenings it felt frustrating. The promise mattered during both kinds, especially the second.
A visiting Sableye discovered the pale gold gleam beneath the arch later that season. It crouched with the delighted concentration that had once belonged to the cavern's resident. Before its hands reached the crystal, Sableye joined it. It showed the wedge, the stream, and the side passage. Roggenrola tapped the bank. The visitor listened, then sat back and admired Sunrise from where it was.
They stayed there until the stream's reflected light spread across both their faces. The crystal looked different from outside the collection: smaller, half shaded, held between ordinary dark stones. Yet the whole arch curved above it, and beyond the arch lay a chamber full of resting Carbink. Its brightness was doing something more interesting than making other stones look dull. Sableye found that it could enjoy the view without imagining a shelf.
At home, the quartz bubble remained the favorite of visitors. Nobody asked why the central space had been left open. Eventually Sableye placed the blue fragment there, not as a replacement for Sunrise but because its own little glimmer deserved somewhere to be seen. The smoky pebble leaned beside it. The green shard looked perfectly adequate, which was a surprisingly pleasant discovery.
Sableye still explored. It still stopped whenever the cavern showed a new gleam. Sometimes it carried a loose stone home, and sometimes it sat beside a rooted crystal until the light changed. Each time it passed the arch, it checked that Sunrise remained where it belonged. The promise had not made the cavern less full of treasure. It had made the word treasure large enough to include the way home.
An original fan-created story by the Poke Fun Play editorial team. Illustrations generated for this adventure.
Featured Pokémon
Sableye
Carbink
RoggenrolaKeep exploring
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