lostcarnival | ⇨ ALOLA

Entry tags:

⇨ ALOLA

Who: EVERYONE.
When: Day 73 - Day 87
Where: The islands of Alola.
What: The Carnival arrives at its next touring location, a series of tropical islands inhabited by a species of animal called Pokemon and their trainers!
Warnings: Pokemon is pretty PG-rated.

IT'S A POKEMON WORLD↴

Alola is broken up into four different islands, with a number of unique points of interest. Boats can easily be rented in order to get between the islands, or you can just pay for the fair of a scheduled trip. If you can prove you have the skills for it, you can also call on a "Ride Pokemon" - that is, either a Charizard or a Lapras that will fly or swim you between locations.

► POPULATION: Though the islands appear very small as an abstraction in the actual games, that doesn't hold over into the actual reality of it. When interacting with the different locations, imagine that they are about as big and spread out as they would be in real life. It's about on the same scale as Hawaii is on earth. Ignore any wikis that say the population of each island is like 200 people, because that's just adding up all the scripted NPCs, and there are realistically more than six houses per town.

► AMENITIES: Even if they aren't overtly listed on island maps, it can be assumed that all towns and cities will have basic amenities - that is, places to eat, place to go to the washroom, places to buy souvenirs, and the other things one would expect in a tourist heavy area. You can also buy malasadas pretty much anywhere.

► POKECENTERS: You'll be able to find a Pokecenter in pretty much every town - a Pokecenter is a public building in which Pokemon Trainers can rest and get their Pokemon healed. Think of it like free international Pokemon healthcare. You can also buy Pokeballs here, as well as potions and other healing items for later use.

► AETHER FOUNDATION: A peace keeping organization that shelters Pokemon from harm and abuse. If you kill/maim any Pokemon or otherwise act violently in public, they will come to try to take you down with their Pokemon. They also are the main force working against Team Skull.

MELEMELE ISLAND↴
[MELEMELE DETAIL MAP] [GUARDIAN DEITY TAPU KOKO] [WIKI LINK]

► TRAINER SCHOOL: A full fledged for young, aspiring Pokemon Trainers! Students go here to learn about Pokemon care and battling before setting out on their own journeys. It would be sort of weird for an adult to show up here, like it would for an adult to try to attend an elementary school, but you can probably learn some of the basics just from touring the facility.

► HAU'OLI SHOPPING DISTRICT: The biggest shopping district on Melemele, you can do a lot here, from eating out to getting your hair dyed. A lot of shops are, unsurprisingly, completely Pokemon focused - but there are some that aren't, too. There are also some very nice beach fronts nearby.

► BERRY FIELDS: Berries come in a lot of different types and have different effects when used. Mostly, Pokemon love to eat them, regardless of what type they are. This is a big field of them, most of which are free to take if you catch them when ripe.

► TEN CARAT HILL: The secluded interior of a small mountain, filled with some rare types of rock Pokemon. You have to be able to bypass the left overs of some recent rockslides to get in.

► TRIAL SITE: There is only one trial on this islands, which is the Normal type trial. All you have to do is fight a bunch of Pokemon ferrets, and then fight an even bigger Pokemon ferret that thirsts for your blood. It's not so bad.

AKALA ISLAND↴
[AKALA DETAIL MAP] [GUARDIAN DEITY TAPU LELE] [WIKI LINK]

► TIDE SONG HOTEL: A big ass hotel near the port - if you want to stay on Alola overnight, this is a pretty good place to go. It isn't too expensive, and is also rather nice.

► DIMENSIONAL RESEARCH LAB: Alola, on occasion, has been the site of various dimensional breaks (haha) in which extraplanar creatures called Ultra Beasts have crossed over. There isn't much information about these beasts, but they are something that are being actively studied. Characters who are nerds might find some of this information interesting.

► HANO GRAND RESORT: The inevitably big, fancy resort that tends to take route in touristy places like this. If you actually pay to spend some time there, you can enjoy all the things you'd expect to find in a fancy resort, except with way more Pokemon. There is also a fancy, secluded beach for resort goers only.

► BATTLE ROYALE DOME: A battle area in which 4 trainers fight each other all at once, with teams of there Pokemon. The trainers here are mostly quite expert, and you need a team of three Pokemon to play, so player characters probably won't be able to participate. However, you can still come to watch, if you like seeing a bunch of colourful monsters slapping each other around.

► PANIOLA RANCH: A large ranch that keeps a lot of Pokemon that resemble earth farm animals. You can leave Pokemon here to stay for a while if you need a break from the strains of trainer life. Quite often, however, your Pokemon will end up getting knocked up and leave you with another egg to care for.

► TRIAL SITES: Brooklet Hill is a lake filled area that contains the Water Trial. You have to fight a bunch of schooling Wishiwashi, and then an even bigger schooling Wishiwashi to win. Wela Volcano Park contains the Fire Trial, where you must climb to the top of the dormant volcano, and spot the difference between a series of ceremonial island dances. Then you gotta fight a team of Marrowaks and a giant Salazzle. The Lush Jungle contains the Grass challenge, in which you have to find a series of rare organic ingredients in order to brew something that will lure out a giant Lurantis.

ULA'ULA ISLAND↴
[ULA'ULA DETAIL MAP] [GUARDIAN DEITY TAPU BULU] [WIKI LINK]

► MALIE GARDEN: A nice big garden to hang out in and chill. Also, there are Pokemon there... and also, Pokemon battles? There's really no end to it.

► MOUNT HOKULANI OBSERVATORY: Up at the top of the local mountain, you can go see a space observatory. Like most things in Alola, it's like a regular observatory, except with more Pokemon, since some Pokemon just straight up come from space. You can take a bus up here, but you can also hike if you want.

► HAINA DESERT: A shitty desert in the middle of the island. Mostly only good for if you want the kinds of Pokemon that live in shitty deserts.

► ABANDONED THRIFTY MEGAMART: A Megamart, but haunted. Extremely haunted, filled with the kind of ghost Pokemon that would actually kill you. You have to take a bunch of pictures of ghosts on your way through here if you want to beat the Ghost Trial.

► PO TOWN: The ramshackle remains of the town that Team Skull have taken over. It's completely walled off from the rest of the world, and is pretty terrible. No point in going in there unless you're fighting crime, in which case you can expect to get challenged to Pokemon battles by a lot of Team Skull knuckleheads.

► LAKE OF THE MOON: A huge, round temple thing in the middle of nowhere. It's used to praise a legendary Pokemon that existed years ago, but there presently doesn't seem to be anything around except cool architecture.

► TRIAL SITES: The Observatory contains the Electric Challenge, during which you have to fend off various kinds of electric grubs, before eventually taking on a giant Vikavolt. The Abandoned Megamart must first be cleared before challenging the Ghost Trial officially, at which point you will have to defeat a powerful Mimikyu.

PONI ISLAND↴
[PONI DETAIL MAP] [GUARDIAN DEITY TAPU FINI] [WIKI LINK]

► SEAFOLK VILLAGE: A village made of nothing but houseboats and other water fairing homes. It's the only major town on Poni Island.

► ANCIENT RUINS: Most of Poni Island has been reduced to ruins, over time. Not many people live here, relative to the other islands, but there are a lot of abandoned buildings from when they apparently used to.

► VAST PONI CANYONS: Most of the island is comprised of canyons, caves, and valleys filled with particularly strong Pokemon, and also a lot of fight-hungry Pokemon trainers. Most of them will want to fight you as soon as they see you, since they are there mostly to train, but they will back down if you tell them you're not a trainer. Though, at that point they will strongly urge you to go home, because it's too danger for anything other than the strongest trainers.

► ALTAR OF THE SUN: A matching altar to the one found on Ula'ula, except this time dedicated to a legendary Pokemon of the sun. If you play some magic flutes here at the right time then apparently a giant lion might show up, but there's no way to be sure.

► TRIAL SITES: The only Trial here is the Grand Trial, which is a fight against the leader's ground type Pokemon. You may also get lucky and have the Fairy Trial's kahuna deign to fight you, with her fairy types, if she randomly wanders into your path. Both of them are very strong, and are not advised to challenge for new trainers.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"This isn't some kind of supervisor hazing thing, is it?" Lambert asks, not jumping at being tapped, though his new tail -- still something with a mind of its own -- will poke Sans right back in the stomach.

Or stomach region. Whatever. How does Sans even get soused without a digestive system, anyway? More magic bullshit, probably.

In any case, the witcher's a little buzzed himself. Nothing like the Celebration -- though nothing will ever be like the Celebration, he's pretty sure -- but enough that he seems to be seriously considering the idea.

"What's in it for me?"

Edited 2017-04-01 05:25 (UTC)

His shirt will give under the pressure of the tail poke, and Sans looks down at it blankly for a moment. He raises his hands in a shrug.

"Personal satisfaction, and the respect of your peers."

He belches, but it seems like he must just be imitating the sound, because his teeth don't move and his skeleton body doesn't really create gas.

"Maybe just that first one."

"You should work on your sales pitch," is what Lambert has to say to that in return. But hey, it sounds a lot better than staring out at the sea for... who knows how long, now?

Regardless, he's getting up, tail flicking carelessly behind him as counterbalance. It's still not something he's really conscious of, most of the time, until it bumps into something else.

"All right, Warden. Let's do some crimes."

"You got it," Sans drawls, putting out a skeletal hand to shake. It's a deal. Some kind of crime pact. Let's do it.

"Put 'er there."

Shake the skeleton's hand, Lambert. There is absolutely a hand buzzer inside.

Lambert doesn't think twice reaching out, though he's not normally one for shaking hands. Seal the deal, right?

Since hand buzzers aren't actually things that exist in his world, he's not expecting the sudden vibration right against his palm when he grips the skeleton's hand firmly. While he doesn't yelp, he does jerk back his hand, tail going straight and rigid behind him before he realizes it's harmless and it wilts down again.

"The hell was that?"

Sans starts chortling between his teeth, bending over a little with the effort of being so goddamn amuse. He reveals the little button device in his palm, grinning widely.

"Hand buzzer," he explains.

"Is this a skeleton thing, or just you?" Lambert's voice is dry, but he does see the humor in the situation. No one appreciates a troll as much as another troll, after all.

He shrugs a shoulder, and deposits the buzzer back in his hoodie pocket. That's a win in his books. Lambert gets points for being sporting about it.

"Just me," he says, looking way too pleased with himself. "Anyway, let's roll. I gotta shortcut."

And then, they suddenly disappear from where they are, and teleport into what appears to be some kind of pristine, white walled closet. There are some miscellaneous boxes on shelves, all very neatly organized.

It helps that it's really hard to stay mad when you're a. drunk, b. literally in a tropical paradise. With the way things are here, Lambert can totally understand why people seem to take life at their own pace and never worry a day in their lives about getting killed by random creatures with a taste for human flesh.

What does catch him off guard, though, is the way they're in one place -- and then, quite suddenly, another. As the sand under his feet is replaced by cold floor, he half-stumbles at the change in topography, but he's quick to catch his balance, glancing around ...

"So where's this?" For tipsy Lambert, 'you could have warned a guy' and 'I didn't really know you could do that' are low priorities.

Sans puts a finger to his teeth in a gesture of "shhh," and goes to open the door. It leads out into a white hallway that looks like it was designed by Apple. There currently doesn't seem to be anyone around.

He creeps out into the hallway, looking around before turning back to Lambert in satisfaction.

"We just broke into the Aether Foundation's secret base."

Because that's how simple break ins are, when you're Sans.

'Aether Foundation.' That should ring a bell in Lambert's mind, but ... all it's going to get Sans is a blank stare initially, before he remembers something vaguely coming up in conversation with a local.

"The ones who run around patching up Pokemon and beating up those Team Skull losers?" That's what happen when you spend most of your time in monster fighting land crashing around the undergrowth trying to turn your donkey into a horse. You miss out on all the nuance of local politics. Lambert glances around the clean, sterile environment, tail twitching slightly.

He's not uneasy, exactly, but he's pretty sure they aren't supposed to be here. As is kind of implied by the words 'secret base.' Which, when he considers it, makes him grin wider. "You shit. How'd you even know where to find it?"

Because obviously, the scouting expedition had missed this particular detail.

The answer is simpler than one might expect, but possibly completely impregnable to someone from a time period like Lambert's.

"I looked it up on GPS," he says, simply. A pause. "...Global Positioning System. It means, it tells you where stuff is, and sometimes there's numbers too."

Sans gestures around vaguely.

"Conveniently, their secret base is just the basement of their not-secret base."

Edited 2017-04-10 02:07 (UTC)

Sober Lambert would probably be scowling at yet another new concept he has to jam into his head, as if this world didn't already have enough of those to get used to. Tipsy Lambert, however, considers the idea and simply takes it in stride, accepting it as yet another inevitability of interdimensional travel. If he's sticking around the Carnival, as one of its supervisors no less (and god, isn't that a weird idea to get used to still) he's going to have to adapt faster.

"Handy," he says, finally. He can think of a few times that he could have used one of those back home to save on time hoofing it all over creation trying to find this cave or that burrow that some peasant had described as nor'west of the old mill about an hour's ride downstream or something equally unhelpful.

"You got any idea what's around here?"

"Upstairs we've got a conservatory full of Pokemon they're caring for," Sans explains as he strides out into the pristine hallways, snooping around. "I popped in there the other day to take a look around."

"Downstairs..." He gestures down to the floor with a hand. "...We've got... some kind of evil lab? Not totally clear on that. That's what we're gunna find out. Normally this kind of shit would be the Nightrider's job, but I got you're back, bro."

That's said more ironically than genuinely, because Sans is kind of like that. Can't be too earnest.

"Thanks. Nothing I love doing more than breaking into possibly-evil labs," Lambert deadpans. In all practicality, breaking into labs is probably a one-way ticket to trouble, which would be a great way to start off his job, wouldn't it? Normally, Lambert really wouldn't worry about it, but he's normally not in such a position where what he does might actually matter, either.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that.

"How fast can you get us back out if you need to?" He doesn't actually understand how Sans's magic works, so it's kind of an important question. Though after the few days he's been in this place, he wonders how much he actually has to worry about dying, or injuries. It smells like it's kept clean, and scenting the air doesn't tell him anything beyond what Sans has already seemed to pick up on: Pokemon and people pass through here, and there's a distinctly chemical smell he can't pinpoint the origin of.

Picking a direction mostly at random, he starts to walk, keeping an ear out for any voices or disturbances. If Sans was going to offer a free ride, far be it for Lambert to pass up on the opportunity he's been given.

How many labs even exist in old timey fantasy world, Sans wonders? Magic labs, maybe? But old ones, all wizard style. It's interesting to think about.

"They got labs back home?" he asks, just making conversation, as apparently he knows exactly where he's going. They'll pull towards some darker warehouse areas with railings along the walkways, and a few scattered doors. Sans approaches one, making only a vague show at being sneaky. His stands sways with intoxication.

"We can leave as fast as I can teleport," he adds, which isn't that informative.

Edited 2017-04-13 04:08 (UTC)

Ding ding ding, Sans is absolutely right: magicians in Lambert's world have labs, and it turns out sorcerors and sorceresses really happen to like experimenting on shit (and some are straight up crazy) so guessing what you find in places like that tends to be the sort of game with the worst prizes. You'll never guess what sorceress X came up with that could kill you!

"Yeah," is what Lambert says out loud. "Mostly for alchemy, but it depends. We had one for making potions at Kaer Morhen, but it used to be where mages made witchers in the first place."

He'll walk where Sans leads, a little less sway in his step. His eyes dilate, adjusting to their darker surroundings. Having that low-light vision is a handy thing.

Edited 2017-04-14 03:56 (UTC)

"So..." Sans drawls, tracing a bony claw in a wide circle around the surface of a particular doorway. He seems to cut straight through timespace, creating a hole through the metal like nothing. Except, the material of the door isn't actually gone, it's just been displaced for the moment.

"What's a witcher again?" he asks. Whether he's being cheeky or he genuinely forget isn't very evident, but being wasted isn't helping him remember things.

"Nice trick," Lambert comments. Seriously, it is impressive, and he has no doubt if Strange or Childermass were here they'd already be analyzing the shit out of what just happened, but here, visually, it just looks cool.

"Freaks like me," he supplies, in answer to the question. Hm, wasn't Sans also drunk the last time this came up? If he can't remember, Lamber will happily refresh his memory. "Monster-hunting mutants."

"Right," he says, remembering something about that. "Nice."

He steps through the portal he made, and beckons for Lambert to do the same. Sans and Lamberts are both experts on not dwelling on things that sound angsty. This time he even neglects to take offense to that particular use of the word 'monster.'

"C'mon, we've got some sensitive info to peruse."

"How sensitive can it be if anyone can walk in like this?"

The designers of this facility should obviously have taken magic into account when they made the place. Lambert's obviously just talking shit, though, because as soon as he steps in, he's already looking around for likely sources of information on the place they've found themselves in, like papers or signs.

Now, what have they here?

Edited 2017-04-18 20:24 (UTC)

Sans lets the portal close after them - he mostly did that for funzies, because he just as easily could have teleported them, albeit with some uncertainty as the layout of the room inside. As they get in they're see shelves of binders filled with notes, and some computers have that been left running, along with various machines and storage devices. Storage is a strange thing int he Pokemon world.

There's not actual point to this quest when it comes down to it. It's not like they are going to do anything with this information, besides be fascinated by it. Probably.

"Did you talk to anyone about the spacial rifts that happen here?" he asks conversationally.

Since Lambert can barely wrangle his radio, he'll leave the lit-up things alone. The whirring in the air is enough for him to guess they're machines, but he has little interest in possibly breaking them or tripping an alarm, so the notes are easier to peruse through -- he picks a binder mostly at random to skim through.

"No, but they don't sound like a good thing," he responds, brows raised. "What's that -- a portal through worlds?"

The binders will be full of miscellaneous nonsense about "Ultra Beasts" and experimentation with various kinds of Pokemon in order to create a new, even cooler kind of Pokemon. It's probably kind of hard to understand what they're talking about as a quick glance.

Thankfully, Sans knows all about portals already!

"Yep. Basically like what we do to get from the carnival to the new worlds we hang out on. Except... random tears instead of intentional ones. Unless the Pokemon are doing it?" He meanders about, looking at the machines from a distance for now. This is a very familiar environment for him.

"Lots of Pokemon are actually from space, or other dimensions. Sometimes it seems like Pokemon is just a word for 'errything that's not human'." He winks at Lambert. "Kinda like 'monsters,' huh?"

Unless it seems immediately relevant to the Carnival's purposes, Lambert's going to shrug and ... tuck the binder under his arm for future perusal. Why bust his head trying to memorize information when he can straight up steal it and pore over it later?

"Why get complicated if you've got something that works?" The skeleton's words get him a smirk and a shrug. If the shoe fits ... "Other dimensions, huh? sounds a lot more like what we've got back home. There aren't any post-Conjunction creatures--" The air quotes around the term are implied, if not actually acted out. "--that could do what you're describing, though."

And he waves a hand at the other shit in the room, since none of it seems to surprise Sans very much. "You know how to use these? Think we can find anything else out?" Answers the question about how much he knows, anyway.

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