bottlecaplogs | October Catchall! (a Mix of Open and Closed)

The archives sure was a grand thing to behold, downside to a small Sylveon, the tablets were about as big and likely heavier than Dolly. It sort've reminded Dolly of the tuppi of Ancient Mesopotamia in a way. Dolly goes to squint a bit trying to figure out the order, made harder due to the no glasses.

"Oh! Sorry I didn't see you there." Dolly inadvertently backed into someone while attempting to see something.

Turns out being scouted by Lum Berry was a very good thing for Dolly! Everything has been prepaid for by Polteageist in Bay Town. Dolly was in a pretty good mood after getting a gingerbread looking saddlebag for carrying things in as Dolly makes her way to one of the cafes. The thoughts of pierogis was sounding pretty good to Dolly before hitting the Archives before noticing a familiar tall green blob shape in town.

"Oh hey Henry, is that you?"

Here comes a tiny Sylveon eager to see her friend again after the mishap in Skull Town.

Not too long after Dolly has officially moved into her guild-assigned residence... someone knocks on her door! ...At least it's probably a person? the knocking sounds kind of like wood-on-wood...

Out on Dolly's front porch, her upstairs neighbor, a slightly undersized Mimikyu with a bright red scarf wrapped around his disguise's neck, waits for a response. (He'd knocked with his tail-stick - which sports a sparkly black-beaded bracelet.)

It was a strange thing to have two moveable ears as Dolly's perked up upon hearing the odd wood on wood knocking. That sure was something curious right there! Upon seeing who it is, Dolly was certainly surprised!

The Mimikyu did make Dolly think of one of the dolls she had been working on not too long ago before arriving here. ~~There was no judgement on size from Dolly given she was absurdly small herself.~~ Oh...so that's what caused that interesting sound, that's pretty cool.

"Oh, hello there! Wood you like to come in for a bit?" Dolly goes to open the door with the ribbon feelers to invite her surprise guest inside.

Something deep within the Ring-Spirit tells him a pun has just been committed, but he tries to ignore this instinct. It would only lead to maniacal laughter and a potentially off-putting first impression. Instead he waves his tail-stick in greeting before shuffling in.

"Hey there. I live upstairs... I was friends with the guy who just moved out from here, so, seemed like a good idea to see who was taking over the place! Are you a local pokemon but a new recruit, or one of the newly-arrived?"

It does not occur to him to offer or ask for a name.

It hadn't occurred to Dolly to share her human given name, it was mostly a fae habit to only share when presented with a name first. Dolly lets the Ring-Spirit inside, eager to know her new neighbor.

"It's lovely to meet you, I've been meaning to meet the other neighbors myself. I'm one of the newly-arrived, had the 'distinct' pleasure of being in Skull Town when Froslass arrived."

Froslass sure was something else to witness! Absolutely horrific in every sense of the word, negative one out of ten wouldn't recommend. Right, back to topic, Dolly offers a warm smile.

"Would you like anything to drink or eat?"

This was certainly a spirited start to the quest after talking to the rather helpful local Ghost type Pokemon, Dolly goes to follow Siffrin along, tiny paws trying to keep up (curse that 60 speed).

From what was understood, they were heading towards the patch of rather tall trees..Dolly felt like one of them was of the fabled kite eating variety. "This quest seems to be a tree-at of sorts. I wonder how it'll branch out?"

The tragedy of being about a foot tall, is it's very easy for him to get bumped into. Doesn't matter that Anasui is nearby, it's a fact of life, and really not a huge issue.

Most of the time.

"Ack-!"

He tries not to drop his tablet, and breathes a sigh of relief when it doesn't go crashing out from his arms.

"I-it's okay, just try to watch where you're going..."

That might be a problem.

Anasui turns around, away from the shelf he was looking at as he hears the small commotion. He raises an eyebrow, immediately recognising the small Sylveon.

"Ah. It's you. You didn't get lost in the fog. What are you doing here?"

The very helpful ghosts, yes... Siffrin (the other one...? how are they supposed to introduce themselves now) is still getting used to the idea of ghosts being a real thing they have to sometimes talk to around here. Somehow, talking animals was easier. Maybe they just don't like ghosts very much.

Luckily, there are fewer ghosts around this part of the woods, and more woods. The trees are so tall they have to bend back to see the tops. They're trying to squint up at the branches when their partner makes a pun unprompted. Immediately, their eyebrows shoot up. Ohh??? Could it be...??

"I'm not sure... I hope we don't get stumped."

Oh hey! Dolly met these two vague blobs before, it's been some time since the Skull Town Festival. Right..the fog? Is it known to eat Pokemon here? Well another to add to the list of things to avoid.

"Yep, I got pretty lucky with getting into a group earlier for going to Bottlecap Bay. It's great to meet up again here though, how you're holding up?" Dolly goes to situate herself properly for socializing.

Oh..OH...the elephant in the room has been brought up by Emporio..."I'm so sorry about that, I'm having a hard time seeing without glasses."

Yessssss, another punster! This is turning out to be a good quest for Dolly. "I be-leaf we'll do just fine, I'm pretty pulp-ed about it."

The name thing was a weird one to Dolly, normally she'd wait for whoever she was interacting with introduce themself first before giving the human given name.

Ghost haven't been much of a bother, no, those were fine. That specific honor went to owls, that's the big bother right there. Yep, not thinking about that now! Back to focusing on that quest, that one is the far better option.

"Fir-got to ask, do we know who was in the team we're looking for?"

"Oh yeah, Froslass... I heard about her, but nothing very clear. I didn't go over until near the end, to help tend some of the torches before everyone sent them out to sea... What was going on in the Outpost? Some people mentioned a party, but others were talking about fighting... and I'm not sure anymore whether local pokemon would necessarily see a clear distinction between the two."

He sounds lightly puzzled by it all, which he is. Almost like 'the experience of being mind controlled' is in fact kinda hard to explain, especially if the one trying to explain hasn't clocked it as having been mind control just yet.

He isn't sure whether the offer of food is merely a social nicety or if Dolly is actively trying to change the subject... but, food is interesting enough in its own right.

"If you're offering, sure."

"Well, a lot of cursing happened there for some pretty petty reasons and meat puppeteering if that makes sense? There was also a lot of maid outfits for it, I still don't understand that one. Other times, it was eerie levels of smiles, like the forced kind you'd see on some mannequins." Dolly pauses a bit at the fighting part.

"yeah, it was a mix of festivities, entertaining Froslass like a Queen, and battles. I ended up getting dragged into one by a really musical sounding dinosaur figure and I ended up blasting him with an iridescent shimmer? I don't know what I did there."

Yep, blasting Kaiba with Dazzling Gleam sure did shook Dolly there a bit. Weaponized iridescences wasn't on her bingo list of things to happen. On a different topic, with a nod, Dolly goes to her rations and pulls out some jerky and berries to share. It looks more like hospitality rather than a dodging the topic.

"Here we are, please help yourself to some."

"Damn. Sounds like a wild ride! And well worth missing out on. Glad I stuck to tending the torches."

He accepts a bit of jerky, tugging it beneath his costume to gnaw on. (Does he have teeth under there? Even he's not sure!)

"The forest ghosts seemed to think it was all in good fun... Which I guess tells you what you need to know about the local ghosts and their sense of humor. I really do think they generally mean well, but they can get a bit rough when they're messing around. So... yknow. Keep an eye out for that."

(He's still embarrassed that his Spiritomb friend put one of his Bottlecap Bay friends in the hospital simply because of what he suspects was a minor trespassing issue. ...And Shoka likely wasn't the only town pokemon hospitalized over that either, it's just that she's one of a few whose well-being he actually cares about...)

The mystery of how Mimikyu eats, its likely osmosis at its finest. Definitely the case right there, no questions to be asked. Dolly goes to enjoy meeting her new neighbor though. "It seriously was a wild ride, I'm just glad to be done and over with that one."

Dolly didn't blame the Ring-Spirit though, that was the same case with her fellow fae back on Earth. Sure it was highly illegal to manipulate a human's emotion like a puppet, but the idea was similar at best. Maybe this was the norm for the Ghost types here, just good nature fun that can get a little carried away at times.

"Thank you for the heads up, I'll make sure to keep that to heart next time if I go see the local ghosts here."

There was no fear or distrust in Dolly's voice as she said it, more like a mutual understanding of it being just how it was. Sort've like ghosts were pretty common place where she came from or at least that was how it sounded like.

Excellent! A job without having to deal with the dreadful beast known as the roof and N O C T O W L T A L O N S. Even better, Dolly got to do it with Siffrin again without the weird Froslass influence like last time. Despite everything, Dolly did enjoy being around them and getting to do puns like last time.

Luckily it was in Bay Town still instead of well the ever very cursed Skull Town. Big bonus right there! Though now, back to business of where to start looking for that Klefki..

"So...we got a place to lock into for the search?"

Edited 2025-10-10 23:02 (UTC)

A.B.A. is following along behind them, at some distance, getting distracted by trying to find keys herself. Every once in a while Siffrin glances behind themself to check they haven't lost track of her, but for now it seems fine.

But! They can actually be helpful with this quest! (In fact, they may have inadvertently been the source of this quest when they let A.B.A know about the Klefki in the first place... oops.)

"I saw Klefki when we were handing out tools together, building Skull Town. So I'm door confident than usual that we'll find them near where they're stored."

Or at least someone who would know where Klefki is?

The real challenge: they don't actually know where the tools are stored when they're not being used. So they're just plain old guessing when they say, "That should be somewhere near the Oran Berries, right...?"

"Let's knock on wood that we spot the Klefki here."

Soft chuckling came from Dolly as she followed along Siffrin's lead for the Klefki. Periodically Dolly would peek back and check on A.B.A, still wondering what the Klefki deal was...was there a bet and Klefki owed money?

Dolly stops walking for a moment to think after being given the question, it was a good one too. Just...where would the tools be?

"Maybe they have a shed somewhere? It's the one place I can think of right now where tools would be put away in."

It seemed like a good place to start...though does the Pokemon world have tool sheds?

Henry leans up from inspecting a small, unoccupied flowerbed. It takes no time for him to recognize the tiny pink creature tottering toward him and he lifts a paw in greeting.

"Dolly..." He's glad to see nothing bad has happened to her. If something had happened to her in Death Skull Murder Town under Frosslass's watch he'd go find the old witch himself and, well, he'd rather not think about it. That's over. The Ordeal at home is over. At least for now.

Henry's tail slides back and forth across the ground behind him once the gap between them closes. "How have you been..."

Don't worry about it Dolly, A.B.A's relationship with keys can only be explained by the homunculus herself. Siffrin still doesn't entirely understand it.

The Shinx flicks their tail thoughtfully. "It'd have to be a big shed... the latch of tools we had barely fit on that wagon." It was a big wagon, too. They're still impressed that the expedition got it through the woods. And there's no way they took all of Bottlecap Bay's tools, in case something was needed back in town...

Anyway, they don't remember seeing all that much above the surface near the Spire.

"But the Oran Berries must have a place to put all the stuff they're mining?" Some kind of storeroom. Probably. Maybe. They've never really explored the Spire, when they've visited they've beelined (heh heh, Ribombee might enjoy that one) straight to people's rooms...

Indoor shed??

"I've been doing alright, I've been researching over at the Archives." Dolly said in a soft and merry tone, offering that same fresh baked cookie warm smile upon reaching Henry.

She had been worried about Henry since leaving the cursed township of Skull, not sure if Henry made it out or got lost in the ever concerning fog that was mentioned. The fog had Dolly pretty concerned much like wild Noctowls...both are very bad, very bad indeed.

"How've you been? I hope things have been going well after what happened in Skull Town."

The mysterious world of A.B.A's relationship only deepens Dolly's confusion upon..everything really. Maybe one day there'll be some light to the whole key deal.

The tiny Sylveon considers this for a moment as a good point has been brought into light, big tools would be a challenge to deal with, "That does ring a bell right there about the tools. They would need to be stored somewhere big like that."

This would be Dolly's first time being to the fabled Spire of lore she's heard about. It made Dolly think of something from an old dark fantasy film she once saw after hearing the name. Mining? That was something Dolly hadn't realized was a thing here...mentally storing that information for later uses.

"That sounds about right, perhaps it's a workshop? If they're mining and the materials are limited, would they have a blacksmith shop for tool maintenance and care?" It was the one thing Dolly could think of, especially if this was a small island with only so much materials to go around with. A blacksmith would be the first place to check in any case.

The mental song of 'Hi Ho Hi Ho it's off to work we go~' was now stuck in Dolly's mind.

It's them! Big gold and purple blob, with brown and green blob! Emporio quickly recognizes her, and looks between the Sylveon and Anasui. "She almost got lost?" he repeats, looking back to Dolly. "It's good to see that didn't happen then. I'm surprised to hear you need glasses though, I didn't think any Pokemon really did..."

Which. Might cause a problem when it comes to getting them back. "...do Pokemon even have proper optomitrists...I know we have the clinic but..."

It's like the classic nostalgic show, the Adventures of Blob and Blob! Big Blob and Little Blob, truly a nostalgic trip for Dolly. "Yeah, I wasn't sure who I'd have to go to just yet at the clinic for glasses." Dolly tilts her head to the side as she thinks for a bit. "But I'm glad too, Bottlecap Bay has been really lovely so far."

Hmm..time to think of a creative solution for the glasses situation, "Do you think one of the others might have been an optometrist before becoming a Pokemon?"

October Catchall! (a Mix of Open and Closed)

My Kingdom for Eye Glasses (Open to Lum Berry Guildmates)

Closed to Henry :3

A Visit: closed to Dolly

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Intimidation Tactics for ISAT Siffrin (The Punning is upon us)

Anasui will be coming in after me!

Hello, I'm anasui

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Hey Anasui :'D

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The Key to Happiness (Closed to Start Again Siffrin)

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Pretend this is the smiling happy Dolly

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