lostcarnival | ⇨ 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

"The only reason I believe humans even have souls is because I keep having to put their ghosts down," is what Lambert has to say to that, shrugging, as a way of saying 'no offense taken.' It's a little hard to wrap his head around the idea of monsters always being weaker than humans. Given what he's seen Sans pull off, it also seems kind of hard to swallow, but then again ... they'd taken him down, in the end.

Though whether or not Rin qualified as human was probably up for debate, anyway.

"Why seven souls specifically?"

Sans turns to look at him.

"What number would you recommend?"

Lambert pauses to think about that.

"Five, probably. One each to stand for earth, water, air, fire, and aether." Can't have a properly grounded spell without it.

Wow, he wasn't actually expecting a serious answer. But, alright then.

"No way," he says, like that should be obvious. Geez, Lambert, what are you thinking? "Seven is a way better magical number than five. F'real, man, sectagons or go home. Five. Pffft."

There are actual reasons too, but he'd rather just ride Lambert's ass.

"Well, my second answer was going to be a hundred, because if you're going to do human sacrifices it's go big or go home," Lambert deadpans back. That's probably more along the lines of the answer Sans was looking for.

"If we were going to a full hundred we'd really be screwed. It took centuries just to get six of 'em," he says. It is bitching about the difficulty of sacrificial rituals time, I guess. Though, he is quick to get more sober again. "Anyway. There are plenty of magical reasons behind it, not that'd make a difference to you. Maybe it wouldn't be so hard, but..."

He trails off, and focuses on the machine, his eyes dimming a little. There were other factors, and he didn't feel like talking about them.

"There," he adds, a bit later, just as a hatch on the machine opens up. There are some Pokeballs settled inside. "They've been making some weird stuff in here..."

"Should've tried spreading around a rumor about an enchanted princess that needed to be freed. You'd be buried in idiots in no time." From the tone of his voice when Lambert offers that 'useful' tip, he's clearly seen how the results of that play out.

But the machine opening up is new, and though Lambert doesn't immediately reach out to touch them -- seriously, something they took this many pains to hide, they could have any sort of failsafe rigged -- he does examine them curiously, glancing at Sans.

"Making Pokemon?" Makes sense for a lab, he supposes, but most of what's in Alola has been mostly natural. "Anything explaining what they actually are?"

"Kinda," Sans says, squinting at the screen. "It's all just referencing external documentation, tho. All of it's got neat lil' project names. Reminds me of home."

Or the labs, anyway, which haven't been home in a long time. Whatever. It's Pokemon time.

"We've already got our hypothesis," he says, and grabs a Pokeball, with no caution what so ever. "Time for the trial." He throws it at the floor.

A Noibat comes out and supersonic screams, right in their faces.

Trial isn't a word that ever has good associations for Lambert, and what happens next has little reason to change that opinion. He claps his hands over his ears at the sudden blast of sound, squinting to see what the hell Sans just unleashed. It's not as threatening as he expected it to be, for all the ruckus it had caused, but he doubts that noise went unnoticed.

Shut it up! he says-- or tries to, anyway. Since his own ears are still ringing hard enough he can't really hear anything else, he has no idea if his voice is coming out the way it should.

Sans is fortunate to not have physical eardrums, which means that while this is uncomfortably loud, he doesn't have any bits inside his head holes that are capable of exploding from sheer force. So, a bit more leisurely than Lambert may feel is appropriate at the moment, he pulls out a small packet of Pokebeans and holds them out.

"Hey batty, I got some beans," he says, raising his voice just a bit, to travel over the screaming. It takes a few more seconds, but the Noibat lands on a shelf across the room, looking around the room - shaken and confused.

Sans looks at Lambert.

"See? Everybatty loves beans."

"What?" Lambert winces, ears still ringing. Sorry, Sans, that bit of wordplay is going to have to go unappreciated for now, although he seems to be recovering his hearing bit by bit...

"That thing's got even stronger lungs than a bruxa." Not technically true, since a bruxa's scream could actually knock him down and shatter his shield if he was fighting against one, but hey, minor detail. He's more interested, right now, in sizing up what they're really dealing with. Huh. a lot smaller than he expected.

"So is this one of their experiments?"

Sans doesn't repeat himself, because it wasn't FOR Lambert, anyway. Not all of it, anyway. It's in this moment that Sans wishes he was a little bit more informed about Pokemon in general, but whatever, it's cool.

"Probably just a sample source," he says, like it's familiar territory for him. None of this is particularly startling to behold. "DNA, stuff like that. I don't remember seeing this guy in the regional dex."

It doesn't exactly look like some kind of terrifying experiment, anyway. Zubats seem to do the exact same thing.

"Hey, I can't wait here all day, bud," he says to the Noibat, still holding out beans on his hand stoically.

Stuff like that ... Lambert frowns, thinking about the notes he'd briefly skimmed. DNA's not a term he's familiar with, but he did know some of the other words there.

"That's got something to do with genes, right?" While he speaks, the Noibat's not-inconsiderable snout twitches, scenting the air. After a moment or two longer, weighing its desire for the bean and potential danger from the other two occupants of the room, it finally takes wing, fluttering over to Sans to snatch the bean from his hand, wrapping its feet around the skeleton's wrist and dangling from it upside down while it devours the bean in messy, chomping bites.

⇨ ALOLA

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the witcher: everything is medieval fantasy, but also have random talk about magical genes