Team Cozy's Festival
“You've gotta be kidding me.”
Those were my words when I found out Team Misfits screwed up yet again and now the whole guild was being asked to chip in to pay off their mistakes. Something tells me several other guild members had similar thoughts as everyone began grumbling about the work ahead of them.
We were all asked to take part in an upcoming festival, and that's when a lightbulb went off in my head. “Festival, huh? This'll be a piece of cake.”
“What do you have in mind?” Wooper asked me.
“I'm gonna bring a core part of a human carnival to the festival. I'm gonna make a few little games for the guests to play.”
“Ooh, games? That sounds like a lotta fun!” Wooper said.
“Oh yeah, it'll be fun. See, I've got experience doing this stuff. Ran a little stall back when I was a kid in school. I know all the ways to rig those games to get some more cash out of everyone who plays.”
“Huh? You're gonna cheat them? That's not nice!” Wooper said disapprovingly.
“Oh, relax, it's not like it's impossible to win them. It's just harder than it seems. Think of it as a challenge for them. If they win, I can give them some random items from the storeroom that nobody's using.”
“And you're SURE this is how human carnivals work?” Wooper asked curiously.
Looking him directly in the eyes, I say, “Rigged carnival games are something EVERY human knows about. To not rig would be to deny the guild's human origins! Now c'mon, let's get this stuff prepared!”
With that, we set to work, preparing a few simple games for our stand. Before long, we had gotten a trio of small attractions ready. A game of knocking over bottles, one of which is heavier, a wobbly ladder climb that's easy to fall off of, and a game of chance where players have to guess the right card three times to win.
The day of the festival finally arrives, and Wooper and I get up early to attend to our stall. On the wall behind me hangs several random scarves, some assorted seeds and berries, and a few Orbs that nobody ever uses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m8u4zv3k2E
“Step right up!” Wooper loudly exclaims to anybody passing by. “Come and give our games a try! You might even win a prize!”
It isn't long before our first customer stops for us, a Teddiursa. “Games?”
“That's right!” I say. “Come throw the ball, knock down all the bottles in one throw! Climb the ladder without falling! Try your luck at picking the right card! The choice is all yours, and all for the low low price of 50 Poke!”
The Teddiursa looks at the prizes we have, saying, “That one looks cool!”
“It's all yours!” I say. “As long as you can win just one of these games!”
Teddiursa reaches into his bag, dropping several coins on the counter. “Not a problem, give me that ball!”
I take the coins, grimacing as I find that they're sticky with... something. Placing the ball in front of him, I say, “Remember, you need to get them all knocked down in one throw.”
Teddiursa grabs the ball and, leaning forward, tosses an underhand throw towards the bottles... and misses entirely!
Easy money. “Oh, tough luck! How about another go?”
“You're on.” Another handful of sticky coins hits the counter, and I hand him the ball again, beginning to wonder why that's sticky as well. This time, he opts for an overhand pitch, hitting the small pyramid of bottles... but one stays standing! Nice, the weighted bottle stayed standing.
Got him again. “Ooh, I felt that one.” Setting up the bottles again, I say, “After coming so close, you can't just leave it unfinished, can you?”
“I can do it, just you watch!”
What follows is a flurry of attempts, each with narrow misses. Just as I had planned all along. But it doesn't last forever.
“GOT IT! Cough up that prize!” Teddiursa points to the back wall at his choice.
“Well well, we have a winner!” I proclaim loud enough for other festival goers to hear. Grabbing his desired Heal Ribbon off the back wall, I hand it to him, saying, “Good choice! So, care to try for another prize?”
The Teddiursa shakes his head, saying, “I spent more than I was planning to here, and I'm hungry now. I'm checking out some other stalls.”
Once he's out of earshot, I bring Wooper closer as I count out our haul. “And that's... 700 Poke, nice! That ribbon wouldn't get us near that amount if we just sold it! But... Why's the money all sticky?”
“Oh, that's easy! Most Teddiursa always have their hands covered in honey!” Wooper informs me.
“Honey?” I give the money a curious sniff, and... Yep, that's honey. “Would it have killed him to wash his hands first? ...At least it wasn't Cyndaquil, I guess.”
A few minutes later, a Swadloon and Sewaddle approach our stand. Wooper sees them, saying “Hey! It's the kids whose mom we helped out!”
“Really? Man, that felt like ages ago.” Part of me wonders if I should go easy on them, but on the other hand... It's for the guild, and I can't drop the act this early on! “So, you kids feel like trying out one of these games?”
“Yeah!” Wooper announces. “Knock the bottles down! Climb the ladder without falling! Or even guess the right card for a prize!”
Sewaddle crawls over to the ladder game, saying “I think I can do this, big bro!” Swadloon reaches into a pouch, handing over a few coins. Yes, got another one!
Walking over to the ladders, I say, “Now all you gotta do is climb to the very end of the ladder without falling off and YOU can win a prize!”
Swadloon picks his little brother up, putting him in front of the ladder. “I know you can do it.”
Sewaddle begins his climb up the wobbly ladder. He slowly worms his way as the ladder bobs and tilts in reaction until... The ladder flips on its side! Another win for... us? I stare in disbelief as I see that Sewaddle is still crawling his way to the end! He should have fallen off! The ladder keeps wiggling around, he's totally upside down, but he keeps going until...
“I did it!” Sewaddle cheers.
“W-what?!” Trying to cover up my disbelief, I say, “G-good job! So, which prize would you like?”
Sewaddle looks over at the prizes, saying, “I want the Barboach hood!”
Grabbing it off the shelf, I put the hood on Sewaddle's head. “There you go, a good fit I'd say.”
“It suits you!” Wooper chimes in.
Swadloon congratulates his little brother again before saying, “Nice job, let's find some snacks now.”
As the two leave, Wooper says, “Isn't that great! He won on his very first try!”
“Wooper.” I lean in close, saying, “We LOST money on that, because I didn't expect someone to show up and stay GLUED to the ladder!”
“Aw, but he looked so happy! We probably made that little kid's day! Besides, if anybody deserves to win first try, it's gotta be the son of the Leavanny that made the guild's blankets!”
Thinking on it for a moment, I say, “When you put it like that, I guess you're right. Hopefully that little Barboach hood's nice and cozy for him. Either way, here's our next player doesn't have the same kind of good fortune that Sewaddle had.”
Over the next hour, more guests try out the different games we have. Thankfully, we start to get a little lucky, as quite a few of them are foolish enough to go for the card game of pure chance. One of them, a Pignite, throws a fit over losing about a dozen times in a row and accuses me of hiding more cards behind the counter, but we get a clear pass from Percival, the festival's chief of security. Every time a player manages to get lucky, I start to get a bit worried.
Eventually, an Aipom approaches our stand. “Knock the bottles down for a prize? Piece of cake, let me at 'em!” Before I can say anything, he tosses some coins on the counter.
Pocketing the money, I hand him the ball. “Remember, all of them have to be knocked over for it to count.”
Aipom tosses the ball up in the air, grabbing it with his tail. His tail spins around, winding up for a throw. With a shout, he pitches the ball, knocking down all but the heaviest bottle. Phew, that was close!
“Oh, so close!” Setting the bottles back up, I say, “How about another go?”
“I see... hmm...” Aipom hands over more money, eyeing up the bottles. This time, his pitch goes even faster, striking the heavy bottle head on! That's enough to send the rest of the bottles tumbling, and he lets out a small cheer. “Got 'em! I'll take one of those Sitrus Berries, please.”
It only took him two tries?! Hiding my disbelief, I hand over his berry, watching the Aipom eat it with a gleeful chomp as he walks away.
Once he's left the stand, I voice my frustration to Wooper. “What was that?! How'd he throw the ball so hard?”
“Maybe he's just a good pitcher?”
“Guy oughta quit playing carnival games and join a baseball team with a throwing tail like that. Just glad he didn't try to play twice.” I let out a frustrated sigh, continuing with, “Hopefully the next guy ain't like that.”
After Aipom, I start to feel less hopeful about this whole venture. If it was so easy for Sewaddle and Aipom to win, my stand's really going to be in hot water if others catch wind of it!
As frustrating as it is, I have to suppress my annoyance at it, because a small, soft-spoken Ralts walks up to us, quietly placing her money on the counter. “Um... can I try the card game?”
A kid this small playing the card game? I try to hide my concerns for the sake of the guild, saying, “Sure you can, you know how this is played, right? Just pick the right card three times in a row and you're a winner. Feeling lucky, kid?”
“Um... Yeah, I can do it!”
Picking up the two cards, I show them to her. One card has a circle, the other has a square. “You've got to pick the circle to move on, remember.” Moving my hands underneath the counter, I swap the cards around enough times to where even I don't remember which is which. Placing them face down, I say, “Round one.”
Ralts closes her eyes for a moment, seeming to wonder about her choice. Opening them again, she points to the left card.
I flip the card over, seeing a circle. “Lucky you, but can you do it twice more?” I shuffle the two cards around under the counter again, and lay them out again for round two.
Once more, she closes her eyes, almost like she's concentrating. What's there to think about in a game all about luck? This time, she picks left for a second time. Flipping it over, I find that she chose correctly again!
“Final round, kiddo. Win this and you walk away with a prize. Lose it and you gotta start from square one.” One final time, I shuffle the cards out of sight, placing them down once more.
“You can do it!” Wooper cheers.
Ralts seems to concentrate even harder, until she opens her eyes, which are... glowing? She flips over the right card, revealing the circle. “I won...!”
“Congratulations!” Wooper shouts.
The way those eyes glowed, there's no doubt about it. “I... You cheated! You can't use your psychic powers t-”
Wooper nudges me with his tail, leaning in to whisper to me. “Don't do it, we gotta cut our losses on this one. It's not worth giving ourselves a bad name.”
Composing myself once more, I say, “...Anyways sorry about that, ignore what I said, I guess I didn't put a rules sign up. Just point at what you'd like, and it's all yours.”
Ralts points at a shiny, light-blue orb on the shelf, with a pattern of snowflakes shimmering inside it. “Um... That one looks pretty!”
Picking it up, I hand it over, saying, “Enjoy the rest of the festival, alright?”
“I will, thank you!” The Ralts gazes into her new orb, admiring the design as she walks deeper into the fairground.
Once it's just Wooper and I again, I say, “At least they only wanted that stupid Hail Orb, no way was anybody at the guild going to be stupid enough to use that horrible thing.” Letting out a sigh of frustration, I continue with, “This whole idea is going south real fast. Strong pitchers is one thing, and players sticking to the ladders is another, but I forgot this world's got guys that can just see the FUTURE!”
“So what do we do now?” Wooper asks.
“What we do,” I say, “Is hope no more psychics show up predicting the future just to win at cards.”
I don't get much time to cool off after Ralts before the next player shows up, and it's just my luck that it's someone I had hoped I'd never have to deal with again. Scraggy, that petty crook I've had to deal with several times before. This time, he wears a red bandanna around his head, looking even more like a common thug than before.
“What do you want?” I grumble.
Scraggy makes a dismissive hand gesture at my words, following with “Hey, cut it with the attitude, or are you about to turn away a paying customer?”
Rolling my eyes, I say, “We'll take your money, but if you try anything funny, you're outta here, got it?”
Scraggy makes a show of slamming his coins down on the counter. “Gimme that ball!”
I hand over the ball, the sooner this hooligan is out of here, the better. “Are you better at throwing than you are at being a crook?”
Scraggy glares at me before reeling his arm back, clenching the ball hard. My eyes go wide as I see a red energy envelop the ball, and then Scraggy throws the ball at breakneck speed at the bottles, shattering them! “That answer your question, helmethead?”
What?! “You owe me three bottles!” I yell at him.
“Nah, way I see it, you owe me one Slumber Orb. I knocked those bottles over fair and square.”
Groaning, I hand over his requested Orb. “Bet it feels nice earning something for once instead of trying to steal it outright.”
Scraggy backs up from the stand, taunting us by saying, “All the sweeter knowing it came from y-ah!” In the middle of his gloating, he trips over his 'pants', falling over backwards and dropping the orb on the ground, shattering it! A pink smoke cloud billows out of it, putting him to sleep.
“Lot of good that orb did him,” I say.
I take a look at the bottle game once more, fragments scattered everywhere. “Wooper, this plan didn't really work out. I guess the human mindset isn't always a good one to have...”
“It wasn't all bad! That little Sewaddle got a new cute hood, that Ralts got an orb she liked, and we still got a bit of money out of it! And uh, honestly I'm kind of glad we didn't win too much. I'm not really a fan of these rigged game ideas!”
“But it's what human carnivals do!” I say.
“I know, but rigging games against kids...” Wooper shakes his head, continuing with, “No, I'm not a fan of it!”
I think about what Wooper said for a moment. “...I guess I wanted to be the guy on the other side of the counter today. I remember being a kid and losing all my money to some rigged game and all I had to show for it in the end was some stupid useless toy. And this isn't really the way to put the guild in a better light, is it?”
“It isn't!”
“But... Why didn't you stop me before we started?” I ask.
“I uh... wanted to see what would happen, because you said it was something human carnivals did.”
“Well, you know now. If we gotta do this again, I'm going with a friendlier idea for sure.”
“That's the spirit!” Wooper says, smiling again.
As Wooper and I begin to store all of the would-be prizes in bags, I say, “You know, now I wonder... What would your festival idea be, Wooper?”
“Oh, I'd try to get a bunch of snacks and have a bake sale!”
A bake sale? “Hey, I ran one of those in the past, too! I should have done that instead. Guess I just ran away with the idea of carnival games instead.”
Wooper smiles at his own idea, saying, “We can just do it next time! Maybe the other guildmates have some cool human recipes, too?”
All packed up, we head back to the guild hall. My festival plans didn't really work out, but at least now we've got the rest of the day to enjoy what everybody else has in store.