Frontier Town Greenbough Empirical Orchards

[Jackie Cat]

Progress is driven by many things – often some combination of ambition, curiosity and necessity. Sometimes it is helped along by compassion, too.

Frontier Town was founded to be a gateway town, well-situated to receive migrants and prospectors from the east, agricultural produce from the south, and raw industrial material from the north. It had some arable land and straddled the Silver River, but it supplied only very little of its own food. At least, until the Empirical Orchards were founded.

Formerly a tract of land used as private gardens in the affluent part of town, this soil was now under lease by one Prof. Greenbough, a Dolliv, for use in scientific enquiry into the care and breeding of food crops, developing new horticultural advancements, and investigation of the uncanny seeds and berries produced by local mystery dungeons.

The plot was divided into a small actual orchard for which the project was named, rows of climate-controlled greenhouses packed with uncanny berries, open-air raised beds harbouring local plants, and a modest array of allotments, in use by select locals. Spare produce was carefully packaged for sale to the town's general stores to help pay down the upkeep. A fair portion of the meals at Traveller's Haus were padded by produce from the Orchards.

The Orchards had a practical, working garden aesthetic: neat rows of plants, well-maintained paths, and a series of small irrigation and shade structures dotted its soil. Assistants could sometimes be seen tending to the plants, taking notes, or discussing their findings with Prof. Greenbough. Some were here not as gardeners, but as weather specialists, volunteering a little of their time to help with climate control.

The professor herself was a waifish figure, physically. Her leaves often had a yellowish tint to them, and she wore a wide-brimmed straw hat the keep the Soja' sun off her epidermis. Even wilting in the heat, she seemingly continued her work at all hours, smiling faintly to herself. Even as she worked, she paid enough mind to greet and fare well any visitors to her budding Eden.

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[Butterfree]

Professor Greenbough had been hard to get ahold of. He'd read at the library early on that there was a genuine biologist in town - but when he'd first gone to find the place, he'd been told while he might be able to apply for a job it'd have to wait until the professor was back from her expedition to acquire new uncanny berry cultivars. Whatever that meant, his interest was piqued.

Today, though, was the day. Professor Greenbough was finally back. Dave fought through a pounding headache to show up at the allotted time.

It'd been a long time since he'd been to any kind of job interview, and since his credentials had not been obvious to anyone not living under a rock. He also hadn't done it as a goddamn Poochyena. Did Pokémon wear more than utility belts for their job interviews? Fuck if he knew. But if this professor would turn him away for that he didn't fucking want the job anyway.

 

[Jackie Cat]

The professor was back in the orchards, as usual, where Dave would find her without any trouble. There wasn't exactly a security gate or staff to waylay him, though he passed a Passimian volunteer at the entrance who gave him a wave on their way out, with a box of berries under their other arm.

Prof. Greenbough noticed Dave just as soon as he entered the gardens, and gave him a little wave of her own.

"I don't believe we've met," she said, lightly, once he was within earshot. Her accent was a little different to most of the local ones Dave would be getting used to by now. "I'm Dolliv Greenbough. What can I help you with, Poochyena...?"

 

[Butterfree]

"Dave," he said, offering a paw to shake. "I, uh, spoke to one of your assistants the other day about a job...?"

On the one hand, he had a fucking Ph.D. On the other hand, his Ph.D. told him Dolliv should not be able to talk. How much of his knowledge was even going to be applicable in this place? And how much was shit that hadn't yet been discovered in this place? They didn't even know about fucking DNA and he'd probably sound like a lunatic if he tried to tell them. Maybe these fucking Pokémon didn't even have DNA. God.

At least he'd be a fast fucking learner.

 

[Jackie Cat]

The professor immediately took Dave's paw to shake. The leaf-like appendage she used still bore particles of loamy soil, and what might have been a splash of berry juice. The Dolliv smiled.

"A pleasure to meet you, Dave. I confess, I wasn't expecting a specific visit, but I can always use new limbs in the orchards."

She tilted her head, in a way that might have been an affectation of mammalian body language.

"Tell me, why do you look here for work? Don't worry, I'm not interviewing you – but I would like to know if you are, what is it they say? A green paw?"

 

[Butterfree]

Figured they hadn't even passed it on. Fucking lab assistants were the same everywhere, he supposed.

"Well, not so much with the gardening. I'm... not from around here, but back home I'm a biologist. Had a team at a lab, doing research. Judging from what I read, you were the main person around here working on actual scientific research." He looked around the orchard. "I take it your work's mostly on plants, mine was mostly on Pokémon, but I'm assuming most of the same principles would apply. They said you were out on an expedition to gather 'uncanny cultivars' of berries? What's that all about?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Greenbough considered this.

"Would you hold this for me, please?" she asked, offering him a small basket. Dave took it, and the Dolliv began carefully filling it with berries from the bush she had been tending to.

"When we call a plant 'uncanny', we mean that it is associated with mystery dungeons," she explained, occasionally turning to make eye contact. "We do not yet fully understand this association, but many uncanny, or 'dungeon berries', have extraordinary physiological and cognitive medicinal effects on pokémon. For instance—" here she offered Dave one of the berries, apparently to eat, "—the persim berry, besides being sweet and delicate to the tongue, clears and focuses the mind."

She smiled at the immediate reaction on Dave's muzzle.

"In seconds, and dramatically so," added the professor. "It's markedly stronger than placebo, with uncanny consistency."

 

[Butterfree]

Dave blinked. They knew about the placebo effect? Was that an 1800s thing in his world? Or was this woman just way ahead of her time, and the cloud's auto-translation was rendering some homegrown concept into the language he was familiar with?

"Clearing and focusing the mind's a pretty vague concept. How are you measuring it? Got some kind of standardized cognitive functioning test, then?" He cautiously sniffed the lumpy berry she was holding (God, how had he been a dog long enough for that to become an instinct), then bit into it and scarfed it down.

It really did have a sweet taste to it. Berries weren't exactly his favorite food, but this wasn't terrible. They did have Persim Berries back home, and they'd help Pokémon shake off the effects of moves like Confuse Ray. Nobody'd ever claimed they worked miracles for the brain of a healthy Pokémon, though, and of course as with most everything useful to battling Pokémon they did fuck-all for a human. Not even edible raw.

The world seemed to zoom in suddenly, everything clearing like a layer of gunk wiped off his windshield, his headache dissolving into a numb tingle in the back of his head. He reeled, shuffling to maintain his balance. "Oh. Shit."

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Yes, quite!" said the professor, chuckling as she put a leaf to her lips. "They're much easier to get ahold of in the frontier, but still valuable of course."

She gestured to the small persim tree she had been harvesting.

"I conducted a field experiment with a tavern full of inebriates," she explained, mildly. "They could hit a dartboard and perform simple mental arithmetic after, but not before, I offered them a persim tea. Usually the reaction is more subtle, but you seem to have metabolised it instantly, and with quite the benefit!"

She picked a few more berries and offered them to Dave with a smile.

"I have many hopes here, Dave. One is to advance the field of medicine. Another is to leave this town in better health than when I found it – so please do take from the orchards according to your needs. I can also pay you in coin or uncanny gold, of course. You mentioned having experience with scientific research on pokémon – could you elaborate for me? Once I have some idea of your existing education, I can begin to catch you up on the theoretical side of the work here. There's a scarcity of experts in the sciences out here, so I'm sure you'll be a great help whatever your field!"

 

[Butterfree]

Well, gathering local drunks and telling them to throw darts at a dartboard before and after treatment was not exactly a randomized controlled trial. Which was maybe not a surprise. Still, there was that mention of placebo earlier, if the cloud’s translation wasn’t way off… “And… you also gave some of them a different tea? Randomized control group?”

As for explaining his experiments on Pokémon… Well. How not to make it awkward that you engineered Tandemaus to have weird cancers. “Well, I… mostly worked with wilds,” he said after a moment. “My field was what we called genetics.” How would the translation render that, he wondered. “It’s about inheritance, how Pokémon pass on traits to their offspring, and the system to it, and why it works that way, and possible applications of that to help people. Have you been working on anything similar here?”

 

[Jackie Cat]

"I gave some an un-spiked tea to drink," confirmed Greenbough. "No significant improvement in coordination or cognition. As you might expect!"

As Dave explained genetics, the Dolliv's eyes widened, and she actually paused her work to listen. She nibbled absent-mindedly on a persim.

"The term you use for your field is unfamiliar to me," she replied, toying with the half-eaten persim, "but how you describe it... Well. It sounds entirely like my own work on heredity in plants. That is most fortuitous!"

She laughed, sounding genuinely joyful.

"Perhaps the Wishing Star has brought me a peer in thought after all. Why, I should very much like to compare notes!"

 

[Butterfree]

The 'Wishing Star', huh? On the one hand he had to knock a few points off for the superstition. On the other hand, he'd actually lucked into finding someone who was working on genetics, in whatever form it existed here. Probably rudimentary, but also, he could probably advance it by at least a few decades just by being here.

He exhaled. At least it sounded like he was acing this job interview. "Excellent, glad to find a kindred spirit. What can you tell me about your work and its findings so far?"

This could be some quaint basics he'd learned in eighth grade biology. Or it could be something absolutely fucking bonkers because he was in a different universe where Pokémon could talk so all bets were off. One or the other. Or both.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Greenbough smiled brightly and moved to retrieve a small notebook from a wooden potting table.

"Ah, I'm thrilled you're taking an interest! Most 'mon just glaze over... In large part, my research has been primarily focused on understanding the dominant and recessive traits in the local flora, which is work enough with mundane plants, but almost another discipline entirely with these extraordinary dungeon berries. For instance, I've crossbred several strains of Oran berries with Pecha berries to study their inheritance patterns. The results are... Well."

The Dolliv eagerly picked up a small notebook, flipping to a page filled with sketches and annotations. As she did, she hurriedly explained inheritance patterns to Dave, and was delighted to find he understood immediately. She showed him another page.

"Take a look here, Dave. Normally, one would expect a straightforward case of dominant traits masking the recessive ones in the offspring. But dungeon berries introduce a difference to what is generally observed in mundane flora. They have what I like to call 'adaptive' – or 'modular' – traits, where the dominant characteristic can shift depending on environmental stressors. It is almost as if the berry plants are 'choosing' which traits are most beneficial for any given environment. By this means, one can produce seemingly unrelated specimens after only a few generations."

She set the notebook down and nibbled on another persim berry, her eyes blind to her surroundings as she visualised branching paths of genetic inheritance.

"It's as if the dungeon's energy imbues them with a form of adapational capability more similar to spontaneous evolution in pokémon than to inheritance of desirable traits from the most successful individuals. Though of course the mutation rate in uncanny berries is very high even in stable conditions; it is a considerable nuisance to control for that. It's worth it, though, Dave! If we can learn to understand this mechanism, just imagine..."

 

[Butterfree]

As it turned out, it was definitely a bit of both. Greenbough had seemingly singlehandedly figured out most of the early study of inheritance through her observations in the orchard, and also talked like she understood evolution by natural selection -- like its truth was casually obvious to her, even, which was refreshing. (And the fact it was refreshing, for him as someone from a world that'd had 150 years to get used to the theory, was also fucking depressing.)

Meanwhile, the research on dungeon berries was something else, and definitely not how these berries or any others worked in his world. His mind raced considering the mechanics of it - different alleles being expressed depending on the environment wasn't new, but that wouldn't change the actual genes getting passed on, wouldn't by itself lead to incremental change each generation, without something extremely fucking weird going on. But she'd kept extensive notes on the phenomenon, repeated carefully designed experiments painstakingly trying to eliminate other variables, and it was starkly consistent regardless. He paged through her notebook staring at tables and drawings and descriptions, generating vague hypotheses, before usually ruling them out based on the result of Greenbough's next experiment, often designed to test essentially the same or a similar hypothesis, even if she didn't have the knowledge to put it in molecular terms. Which, again, was very goddamn refreshing.

"Huh," he said as he looked up from the final pages of notes. "Well, that's fucking fascinating. Have you tested whether there's a crucial period in development where the environmental adaptation happens? Shifting the environment at different stages of the plant's growth?"

 

[Jackie Cat]

Greenbough's eyes lit up and she cupped her chin in one leaf.

"I did have some tests in mind to identify when the adaptation occurs, but shifting the environment at different stages... Well, typically the seedlings react poorly to inconsistency in their conditions. It would be most worthwhile to identify at what point that intolerance develops..."

She beckoned Dave to accompany her to the outbuilding she used as a laboratory, already gesticulating through an explanation of how she'd categorised her cultivars, and the importance of relatedness over aesthetic similarity.

There was much, it seemed, to learn.

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[MintyMimix]

Whether it was picking up ingredients for Drungfield's remedies or just requesting a few berries for his personal projects, Ghaspius had started to become a regular visitor to the orchards. Yet on every trip there, without fail, he'd often get distracted as he wandered the rows of plants only to find himself. More often than not, he wasted more time finding himself on the complete wrong side of the facility after musing just a bit too much, and that morning was no exception.

"Let's see here, this is the lettuce patch, so the Cheri patch ought to be... er..." The Misdreavus spoke to himself as he rolled to his side ninety degrees trying to get his bearings. Still, a glimmer caught the corner of his eye, and his distraction streak continued once more. He righted himself up and tried to float over the plants to reach the shiny figure.

Unfortunately, he failed to notice the tomato vines his ghostly robes got caught onto while floating across the aisles. He let out a yelp as he felt himself yank back for a brief moment with an expression of confusion. At least he didn't knock anything down this time.

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

Ever since uncovering that cursed notebook from the mayor's vault, Steven spent most of his waking time pouring over its pages with Laura (with whom he'd become better acquainted). Fortunately, or unfortunately, Steven found his beldum body could go longer periods without rest than he could as a human.

The only problem was that more time spent awake and reading the notebook, the more he needed a break to get away from what its pages held. He hadn't slept much since the gala, and while he probably should have, a place that simply proved restful would be more than enough for him.

He let himself wander where he may, no particular destination in mind. He wasn't quite sure how he managed, but he found his way to the Greenbough Orchards, and he was not regretting it in the least. The air was different here, cooler, more peaceful.

He was just beginning to feel himself relax when there was a rustle and a yelp in the nearby row. Startled, he gave a small screech, turning toward the source of the noise. He jumped again as he saw the approaching shape was a ghost pokemon, but calmed a bit when he realized he recognized this ghost type. He'd seen that red scarf before.

"Oh, hello," said Steven, hoping his momentary fright didn't come through in his tone. "I remember you from the gala. In the vault, more specifically. You made some kind of smoke to cover our exit. Oh, but uh," he eyed the misdreavus attempting to untangle himself from the tomatoes. "Are you alright?"

 

[MintyMimix]

Hearing the screech, the Misdreavus darted his head in all directions as he shouted, "Banshee! A banshee's hauntin' this place, I tell ya!" He tried to yank himself out of the entanglement, but to no avail. "Come on out, I ain't afraid of—oh, hello there!" As though a switch flipped in his head, his tone jumped from defiant to cordial mid-sentence.

"Weren't you the fella that grabbed the book? Groovy move there, shiny man," He remarked with the tilt of his head. He did not acknowledge his earlier outburst in the slightest. "And that I did! Had to make due with what was there, but nothin' a little bit of brewin' couldn't solve for the escape. Speakin' of which, ah, could ya use your fancy psychic powers to get me outta this bind?" A slight smile etched on his face at his own little pun.

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

"Banshee! A banshee's hauntin' this place, I tell ya!"

Steven nearly leaped out of his skin, letting out a startled pulse of magnetism that could have wreaked havoc had they been standing anywhere other than the orchards. But just as soon as the misdreavus cried out, he calmed down as if he hadn't just scared the metaphorical pants off of Steven. Twice.

"Gods," Steven breathed, drooping a little his levitation. He wasn't upset, just frazzled. He took a moment to compose himself once more.

"Yes, that was me," he confirmed, but then his eye rolled thoughtfully. "Well, I grabbed a sword initially, and a sprigatito, but yes I did end up with that book." His expression soured a bit at the mention of the very thing that drove him to this place, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared. "Not quite as clever a trick as you, though."

Speakin' of which, ah, could ya use your fancy psychic powers to get me outta this bind?"

"Oh, forgive my manners!" he said, as the misdreavus gave a bashful smile, still stuck in the bushes. He drifted toward the ghost type, hesitantly at first, but their jovial nature put him more at ease. "Maybe not my psychic powers, but I can help out. I, ah, don't have the best control of those yet, and well, the type matchup," he offered, awkwardly. Hopefully they'd understand.

He turned to the side and gently hooked a claw in the vines, untangling the misdreavus' scarf from the vegetation. "Steven," he said in introduction as he worked. "And you said brewing? Where did you learn something like that?"

 

[MintyMimix]

"Oh, so it was you! But wait, if you're here, and I'm here, then that means... I'm the banshee!" Ghaspius replied with a snicker as he tried to lighten the mood a bit. "Sorry 'bout the spook, but usually when someone screams, somethin' terrifying follows, yeah?"

He gave a grateful nod as the Beldum's claw help him wiggle just out of the entanglement. "Mismagius Ghaspius," he said with a grateful grin. "Ain't no thang, just that little bit was all the help someone could ask. Getting a full reset on our moves don't exactly help either of us, huh? I miss my Will-o-Wisp..."

Finally freed from fruitful snare, he floated around in a circle as his tendrils gleefully fluttered in the air. "Studied lots of alchemy back home. Learnt all about breaking down compounds and writing 'em out, what to do to mix together new ones, how temperature and volume affect the product, and what kinds of organics could make what — last one required lots of experimentation." His smile softened. "People love chasin' gold, but me, I think there's a lot more that can be done than just plain ol' metal. Ways to make people's lives better."

He hummed. "How 'bout yourself? What'd you do before all this?"