She grins. "You made friends without the psychic link from the ball helping? That is so cool! But of course you want to be able to digitize it so you can go through doors and use the Pokemon Center and stuff. Just throw the ball at it and you should be good!"

He tosses the ball at Daana'd experimentally.

It hits her side, bounces off, the floats in the air and absorbs her as a beam of light before falling to the ground. It vibrates for several seconds, then goes *click*. 

"Great job!" says the girl. "Now you can just press the button on the front to let your Gyarados out, and press it again to re-digitize it."

"Thanks!" he says brightly. "And where would I go to heal her?"

"Wow, you really are foreign, I thought Pokemon Centers looked the same everywhere. That building, with the red roof, or anywhere like it. Just give the Pokeball to the nurse."

"I am extremely foreign," he agrees. "Thank you again."

Then he enters the Pokemon center and, as indicated, hands his Pokeball to the nurse. "Hello again," he says politely.

"Caught one already, then? Nice!" She puts it in the machine, which goes beep for a while and then goes ding. "Your Pokemon has been restored to full health. Come again anytime!"

...for free? Universal healthcare is not a concept Aril has encountered before. On the other hand, if that healing artifact is as easy to use as it looks, it makes sense. Speaking of which, what the fuck. Is this what the First Age was like? No, not enough orichalcum on everything.

"Where can I find out more about how the artifacts of this realm work?" he asks.

"Hmmm . . . Aether Corp is is Saffron City, and they work on inventing new kinds of Pokeballs and such. Cinnabar Labs is doing some cool things, though not with Pokeballs in particular. There's also independent scientists like Bill and Professor Persimmon who you could talk to."

He nods. "You wouldn't happen to have a map of your region that I could study for a bit, would you?"

"Sure, no problem!" She pulls a little device with a screen and buttons out of a pocket and shows him a map.

He studies the map for a moment. "So, Cinnabar Labs would be the closest of those places to us? And they're... near a volcano?"

"Yup! We're here, in Fuchsia City, and Cinnabar Island is a quick flight west." She points. "West is that way, incidentally."

Yes, thank you lady, Aril totally didn't know which way was west. 

"Do you know anything about the character of their volcano spirit? Is it easily angered, do they have a sacrifice arrangement, that sort of thing."

"Whatever you're doing for translation is running into trouble . . . are you suggesting there's a legendary Pokemon on Cinnabar Island? I've never heard of one being seen there."

"...well, the map said there was a volcano there, right? Can't have volcanoes without volcano spirits."

"There's definitely a volcano, but it hasn't erupted in ages, and if there are any spirits in it they're very quiet ones. Do you think you'll go looking for them?"

"Ah, so it's in hibernation. I don't need to find it, I just wanted to do some meditation in the caldera and I didn't want to offend it without cause. If it's hibernating then there's not much danger of that."

"Sounds good! What's meditation like, and why do you want to do it in the caldera?"

Hmm. No one has reacted so far to the extremely obvious signs of him being Anathema, but maybe he should keep this particular card a bit closer to his chest anyway. "Meditation is... peaceful," he chooses to say, instead of 'meditation helps me better channel the might of the Unconquered Sun'. "The caldera... well, that's a personal thing. I like doing things in dangerous ways, in dangerous places. Even meditation. It's sort of a paradox." (Also, close proximity to the burning blood of Gaia helps him better channel the might of the Unconquered Sun.)

"Okay," says the woman. "Have fun!"

"I expect I will! Thank you for all your help."

Aril considers his next move as he exits the building. He'll go to Cinnabar Island and do his best Syl impression to get an overview of these people's bizarre, miraculous technology. No, wait, before he does that he'll meditate in the caldera so he can develop those little scraps of extra Integral Essence he's been keeping around into a few animal handling charms. (Syl always told him to keep some Integral Essence free instead of just funneling it all into his Personal Essence pool, and who's laughing now? It's Syl. Syl is right about everything.) After he's done that, he'll do his marvelous Syl impression and learn all about their tech, maybe find out some more about these "legendary Pokemon", and then find a way back to his Circle.

This decided, he lets Daana'd out of her ball, hops on her back, and flies west. (It's that way.)

His flight takes him along the coast for a bit, then out over the ocean, over some tiny islands that probably include the one where he first landed, and finally over an island with an impressively tall volcano. As he circles closer, the island also proves to have several buildings on it, including duplicates of the red-roofed Pokemon Center and blue-roofed general store. There's also one that looks like it might be an auditorium of some sort, and one that might be a lab.

He spirals down into the caldera, finds a decent place to sit, and re-balls Daana'd.

It's hot as Hell in here. Good. He renews his Hardship-Surviving Mendicant Spirit, crosses his legs, and rises slowly into the air.

The faint golden glow around him increases, first to a flame, then to a radiance, then to a pillar of golden light that emerges from the mouth of the volcano and can be seen for miles. In that pillar of golden light, Aril sits, manipulating the fundamental forces of reality so that he can make a giant snake better at being a giant snake.

He's quite a sight! People from all over the island start walking up the mountain to investigate.

If he's paying attention, he might hear a distant chuckle, faint enough that it isn't clear if he's imagining it.