Splashmother's Landing: Quest for the Starry Sub

Bryan had only met Abigaelle a few days ago, but time and conventions waited for nobody, and it was the solemn duty of all staff (new and old alike) to test out all the sweet VR attractions to make sure they weren't broken.

Bryan settled his helmet on and looked around the open ocean. They pair were already afloat on the high seas, in a flat-roofed, glass-fronted vessel that looked a lot like a house boat that had been converted into a Subway branch. "Well you couldn't eat much fresher than this!"

Off to starboard was a tropical island, where a number of huge, bright pink sea creatures were grazing slowly in the shallows. "Take us in, helmsman!" he shouted, and the teenager working inside the subway trudged over to the cash register. He punched a few keys on the POS system and the boat started to turn.

"You see those Gastrodon in the shallows?" he asked Laguna, pointing out a mother slug with a row of Shellos pups floating alongside her. "They're munching on some mighty fine sea grass," he said, looking down and finding he was already dressed in a swimsuit, "and if there's one thing that giant sea slugs and the Japanese agree on it's that that stuff ROCKS when prepared properly."

They reached the shore and he jumped into the shallows, paddling around and throwing heaping handfuls of the seaweed back onto the boat. "Take this stuff to the dude inside! I bet he'll know how to dry it out." He looked across the shore, at the fruit palms and rockpools covering the secluded island. "We really his the jackpot here. This place is going to be a goldmine for rare ingredients!"

mWmGcIh71-10

Abigaelle was not expecting to go and play games with her new boss, but Bryan really was just that very chill guy that made it so easy to do. It was a no-brainer that she'd join him.

The vessel was a literal Subway boat, which felt a bit egregious in its product placement. Regardless, it was for a silly minigame at the con. She just laughed, grinning ear to ear as she twirled across the deck.

The island they had landed on was perfect! "Aye aye, lots of delicious stuff if you know where to look! Although I admit, I've never had sea grass before." She'd carry the handfuls of seaweed to the teenager at the helm, or... more accurately the register? This was bizarre even for her. She swiftly decided not to think about it.

Before she could properly turn back to the island, her eyes glanced over at the other boat nearby. A man (The Captain ) and a little girl on a much more reasonable boat. How sweet. "Good luck over there!" She'd wave happily, before bounding back over to the island and leaping ashore. Her feet trudged through the wet sand.

Only to get pinched before she could really search through all the small tidepools.

"Yowch!" She screamed, kicking her foot, as a crab seemingly had pinched on tightly. After a few moments of awkward hopping, she lowered her foot back into the water and it suddenly let go and began to swim away.

"... Wait a second. Crab tastes great!" She suddenly shouted, smirking ear to ear as she dived in to grab the back of the crab, free from its pincers. A little karmic revenge always tasted good on the dinner plate. "Hey Big Bee ! Do you know how to prepare crab? Seafood was kind of a rarity for me!"
L6n0IpSs1d10
1d10

"Laguna, this is San Francisco. Which means it's absolutely criminal that you haven't had any good seafood yet. Remind me to organize a company welcome dinner for you down at the wharf this weekend!" Sea grass and crab. This sandwich was coming together nicely! Maybe the sea grass could be kind of like a nori wrapper for a California roll style sandwich. Now that was true fusion cuisine.

A worried looking guy was floating near their boat, asking about taste pairings. Big Bee waved to him from the shore. "Yo! There's plenty of good ingredients along the beach!" he called, making his way towards a beach citrus tree that had sprouted from a rocky section of shore.

Big Bee considered himself something of a gourmand, so as he picked limes for the sandwich garnish he gave Morpheus some general advice. "I'm going for citrus, which is usually a slam dunk when it comes to seafood pairings, but you can also do something sweet like papayas, or something thick and fatty like coconut flesh or milk. There's a ton of good options! What do you have so far?"

3fgBlgJA1d101d10

Logan knew he was taking a plunge in a couple ways by coming to this con in person.

Not, like, financially. His parents had that much covered. He could buy to his heart's content, as much as he could fit in his bedroom anyway, and maybe if he asked nicely he could fit a few things into the guest room or one of the other rooms they didn't use much. That wasn't the issue.

But, well, he was in a weird spot where he tried not to mix UNOVR and real life much, and also where his avatar wasn't completely unknown (he thought, he hoped--hey, Valentine had done that one raid, right? That had to be something! Even if he didn't remember much in the way of details...) but definitely wasn't one of the big name players either, and going to the con in person might just complicate all that even further.

At least his outfit was sensible enough, because here in VR, he was still wearing it. Logan was glad he hadn't gone with his first thought of cosplaying as his avatar--the pink wig was wild enough, but the more he examined her outfit, the more he realized that it was very girly and showing way more of her body than he would ever want to do in person. But he was still crossplaying, even if someone who didn't know the game lore (but who would that be at UNOVRCON?) wouldn't be able to tell. Hey, it wasn't Logan's fault that this game had like, five NPCs! Cygnus' outfit was way too complicated, he didn't think he could pull off the sheer chad-y vibes of Chadwick... the rival, maybe, but Logan didn't know how you'd get those star prints onto clothes without either doing a really sloppy job outright painting it or just like, hiring someone, which felt weird.

So, in UNOVRCON in reality and on the ocean back in VR, Logan was dressed like Dr. Bunya instead, and feeling a little awkward about it.

(He'd come to the Arcade just for the STAMP initially, but hey, while he was working on free swag for himself, why not try to get some free swag for his character while he was at it? But Logan didn't trust his cosplay outfit to be quite sturdy enough for that knock-off Temple Run business. The monocle kept falling off as it was, and the stockings kept creeping back down his legs...)

So. Sandwiches, huh? Logan wasn't an expert on those, in real life or in Pokemon. (Did they even have those in the regular games? Were those, like, an item at some point? Or did the devs just make that up entirely?)

But as he steered his boat onto the island and examined the trees nearby, upon hearing a nearby player's shout for help, Logan realized one thing he did know a fair bit about... or used to, anyway.

How long ago was it since he'd spent hours on end mixing Pokeblocks in Pokemon Emerald, trying to get just the right contest stats...

"The pink ones are sweet! So that should be good, right? Probably better than the red ones, those are spicy, I think... and dry, maybe? I never did know what 'dry' was supposed to taste like, but I'm guessing it's an acquired taste at best..."

Funny how the old knowledge came flooding back like that, the moment he needed it again. It was like he was eight years old again, hunched over his translucent Game Boy Advance, hoping that this Pokeblock would be enough to make his Pokemon a contest Champion...

Even in the more sedate of the two minigames, Logan didn't trust his outfit to be up for much activity, so he shook the nearby trees rather than trying to climb them. Some of the pink and red berries fell down, but also a twisty blue one, and while it looked familiar Logan couldn't remember what it was supposed to taste like, or its name for that matter...

"I mean, do we know what kind of thing the, uh, Splashmother likes in the first place? We don't, right? So, uh, might as well play it safe, I assume?"

Logan was used to playing it safe, at least. He was out of his comfort zone enough as it was here.

Ohhh, he asked for help, and help came! A person with a lab coat had shouted at him which berries were which (or more of, which ones likely had flavor to watch out for). Even if he had played Pokemon before, he wasn't a berry enthusiast, and he wasn't exactly a competitive player either, so yeah, berries were completely out of his knowledge (except for maybe the Sitrus berry, which did its job keeping his Pokemon out of death's door).

❝Y'think the one we're making the sandwich for has more of a sweet tooth or is a spicy thing?❞ he also snickered to himself at the mention of 'dry', for he recalled that one of his Australian friends loved to joke about things being dry (it was a dry rain). He did wonder how that was like though. Maybe in reference to wine that dried one's throat? Should the game even have something like that when kids were a huge demographic ?? Suddenly, Jinyu was in crisis. Anyway, he decided to collect a good variety and run over to the person giving him instructions (Valentine ), dropping a few along the way, but that was alright, the other Pokemon could have it (if there were any of them in the minigame, that is).

❝I'm more of a sweet tooth guy myself! How 'bout you? Don't think we can just give a pure berry sandwich though. A hearty sandwich needs meat! We should go fishing!❞

There were wo games, and one was vastly more popular than the other.

So, Kasey had gone to the unpopular, quiet one.

They didn't know what exactly golden parkour entailed, but it sounded like screaming, and dying, and here they were.... on a warm little beach, picking berries from a bush. Not that it was entirely peaceful- someone (Jade Jager) breached the water with a gasp, hair clinging to them as they hauled themselves out of the water one-handed, and managed a complete sandwich.

Kasey just watched them, mute and somewhat in awe. Who was that? Probably one of the really strong trainers...

Kasey looked at their little pile of berries, fruit, and crisp leaves. Was a wrap even a sandwich, technically? Kasey had no idea. They didn't much feel like fighting a pirate for actual bread...

E6P17fU31d10 1d10

Fishing was easy, but identifying which fish would be best for his sandwich was not. How was he supposed to know if the bigger fish tasted better than the tinier fish? Was this fish fatter? Did that play a part? Did their colors do something like with the berries? Because most of them were blue and gray, did that mean they were dry like what that other player said?? So many questions...at least they weren't Magikarp! Herr Forehead would've been sad if he ended up using his brethren for the sandwich, even if he wouldn't know.

He decided to pick a fish at random and chop it up with the game's knife. That didn't mean he was actually chopping it up, but pressing a floating button and turning the fish into sliced sashimi the next moment. Great! Berries, sashimi...what would go well with these? He glanced around to see what the other players were up to and saw one of them (Big Bee) swimming out into the open ocean. Ohhh, why didn't he think of that? There were plenty of other ingredients hiding underneath the water!

❝Wait for me!❞ he waved as he ran on the sand, leaving his ingredients behind on a conveniently placed white table. ❝Woohoo!❞ since he was using his in-game avatar, it somehow felt like the flavor from the trainer class was still active. Swimming was a breeze! An underwater breeze, if that were a thing! But grabbing seaweed didn't seem very inspired, so he dove deeper and kept scanning the area, deliberating moving to an opposite direction of that other player (why was he going near to the underwater volcano? Anyway...) He didn't have to move far before the seaweed gave way to something else. Seaweed, but not quite.

Sea Grapes! That didn't sound like it'd fit the sandwich at all, but he took it gladly, harvesting quite a number so that he could snack on them when he swam back to the surface. Ah, he wished that he could hold his breath for this long in real life, but VR was not half bad.

Soon, he resurfaced and swam to shore with his free hand, proudly showing off a huge batch of a very beady and green plant.