stop and find a way for love

[domeinion]

[1) Overlook Hill]

[It's Feast of the Sail. And, as Alice established a few months back, she's been chasing a theory that weird things happen in Ultern around holidays. So she'll spend a little time investigating! ...by which we mean she's checking out the epicentre of where things happened last year. You might find her flying above Overlook Hill, taking notes while riding Altareon...]

Oh, hello down there! Have you seen anything?

[...or walking... or more likely falling off a ledge and picking herself up, banged up but apparently otherwise fine.]

Not again.

[2) Turnbloom City]

[Otherwise, Alice has come back to Gateway Port and brought out the fortune-telling booth again this year! She's dressed the booth up a little more with (poorly made) paper hearts, and the machines are again labelled "Regular" and "Romance."]

Happy Feast of the Sail! I've updated the fortune algorithm this year and added new options! Just press one of the output buttons if you want your fortune told.

Comments

2

[chloeandeevee]

Chloe and Eevee are walking along when they receive this greeting. They pause to look at the booth.

"You have fortunes from a machine?" Chloe blinks. Well, it's certainly a unique way to do it....

Eevee warbles and reaches to press a button.

"Eevee!" Chloe exclaims. Eevee is reaching to press the Romance button.

[domeinion]

"Oh, yes! I built it myself." Alice smiles. "See, back home, this is the Feast of the Sail, celebrating the god of the future, connection, and communication! And a few side domains like romance and Wi-Fi. So a fortune-telling machine is a fairly common fixture of festivals on this day! Granted, they're usually run by Sail devotees, but we don't have anyone else from my home here other than me."

She lets Eevee press the button, and the machine prints out a fortune. The truth will soon come out, as will the true feelings of someone around you!

[chloeandeevee]

"The god of Wi-Fi?" Chloe blinks. Well, that's certainly unique.

Eevee blinks at the fortune, while Chloe blushes. "Vee?" says Eevee.

"The truth will come out ... I wonder what truth," Chloe mused. "And what person...."

It's probably all nonsense anyway, but who knows. Maybe it's not!

[domeinion]

"It's possible! Fortunes aren't guaranteed, of course, but it's a fun use of time." Alice smiles. "Have you been having a good day? I heard last year that similar holidays happen in other places, too."

[chloeandeevee]

"It is kind of fun," Chloe smiles. "And yeah, we have, thanks. Back home, we have a holiday today called Valentine's Day."

"Eevee-vee!" says Eevee. She loves Valentine's Day! Especially the sweets!

"I hope your day is going well too," Chloe says.

[domeinion]

"For the most part, yes!" Alice claps her hands together. "Nothing dangerous appears to have happened lately, at least. I was investigating earlier just in case. After all, the strangest things have been happening around holidays."

[chloeandeevee]

"That's great," Chloe says. "How weird things keep happening on holidays. Maybe because they figure a lot of people will be gathered together to celebrate?"

[domeinion]

"It's possible." Alice adjusts her glasses. "After all, Celebi came to the summer festival because it wanted to join in the festivities. And that shoal of Malamar presumably targeted Harvesting Bonds because there were a lot of prospective victims..."

[chloeandeevee]

"Yeah...." Chloe shudders at the memory. "Well, hopefully nothing will go wrong today."

[domeinion]

"I hope not. I haven't seen anything odd, and my team has been checking as well." Alice looks up, then back at Chloe. "Then again, things have been fairly quiet as it is, don't you think?"

[chloeandeevee]

Chloe pets Eevee. "Yeah, it has been...." Hopefully that didn't mean the bad guys would decide things had been too quiet and it was time to stir it up again.

"It seems like there haven't been a lot of new people coming in lately either...."

[domeinion]

"That's possible. To tell you the truth, I haven't been keeping track of that. I've been too busy working on my theory connecting the strange phenomena around here to holidays and festivals, so I haven't been leaving my lab much, either..."

[chloeandeevee]

"We're always looking for people and Pokemon we know, so we try to keep track of who comes in," Chloe explains.

"Have you made any progress on your theories?"

[domeinion]

"Not enough. But I'm trying. You haven't seen anything odd today, have you?" Alice hums. "If they skip the Feast of the Sail, the next possible target might be Helix Day at the start of next month..."

[chloeandeevee]

"We haven't," Chloe says. "I hope they'll skip Helix Day too." She hugs Eevee, who warbles.

[domeinion]

She sighs. "Or at least that whatever happens is harmless. The odd phenomena coming in only started to be dangerous recently, and only the Malamar incident seemed intentionally so."

[chloeandeevee]

"Yeah.... Hopefully it won't keep being dangerous," Chloe sighs. She hates to think what might happen next.

[domeinion]

Alice leans forward. "Were you at Harvesting Bonds that day? I hope neither of you were hurt."

[chloeandeevee]

"We were, but we were okay," Chloe says.

"Vee-vee-vee!" says Eevee.

[domeinion]

"That's good at least." Alice pulls out her notes and starts flipping through them. "We had a lot to deal with that day. They pulled out some exploding pumpkins when we had them cornered! Thankfully, DJ was able to deal with those."

[chloeandeevee]

"Exploding pumpkins?!" Chloe says in disbelief. "Why did they do that?"

[domeinion]

"That's what I want to know." She looks down and shakes her head. "It sounded like they wanted to control or get rid of everyone but them, and take over the region. The pumpkins must have just been a backup plan."

[chloeandeevee]

Chloe and Eevee stare.

"That's horrible," Chloe says.

[domeinion]

"You've got that right." She frowns and adjusts her glasses again. "I just hope it doesn't happen again. That's why I've been trying to study patterns and figure out what went differently that time compared to the rest."

[chloeandeevee]

"I hope you figure something out," Chloe says. "My dad's a researcher.... Maybe I could help?"