Lentimas Town, of course, wasn’t in the original Black and White; it’s a completely new area. Perhaps the town was only founded recently? As Skyla’s plane swoops in, we see dead trees, parched red soil, homes built from mud-brick, and a rickety wooden fence marking out the border of the town. Even the airfield is strewn with boulders. Charming little place. ‘Rustic,’ I think to myself. Yes, let’s call it rustic. We later learn that Lentimas isn’t a new settlement at all – it’s just downright inaccessible. Aside from the airfield, the only way into Lentimas Town is from the east – which is dominated by the imposing Reversal Mountain. Why would anyone even want to come here, with such obstacles in their way? We discover the answer not long after landing. Lentimas is a pottery town – the area’s industry is centred on the production of fine ceramics and porcelain from the local volcanic clays. Not exactly a matter of any great importance for Pokémon trainers, but towns have been founded on shakier grounds than that. Professor Juniper explains that we can reach Undella Town through the recently-dug tunnels in Reversal Mountain, encourages us to travel that way to reach Opelucid City, and leaves us to it. Her own reasons for coming to Lentimas Town remain obscure, and I assume she is here to purchase some of the local porcelain. Bianca departs to explore Reversal Mountain, while Jim and I check out the town. It is, much as we surmised from our aerial survey, a grim place. Still, I do find two very important things: a Fire Stone and a Move Tutor. My Growlithe, Barristan, has been falling behind my other Pokémon for some time now, so with the Fire Stone in hand, I evolve him into an Arcanine and enlist the services of the local Move Tutor to teach him Dragon Pulse. Thus equipped, I depart Lentimas Town with Jim, fully intending never to come back.
Lentimas reminds me a little of Fallarbor Town, in Hoenn, only much more depressing. Fallarbor makes the most of Mount Chimney’s volcanic soils to produce thriving crops, and the nearby river keeps the place from drying out too much. It’s recognisably a ‘desert,’ but as deserts go, it’s not so bad. Not much of anything grows in Lentimas Town. Clearly a forest surrounded the town at one point, but those trees look long dead. I get the sense people only live there out of sheer obstinacy. All of this, I think, is intentional on the part of the game designers, and provides a nice contrast to the fairly idealised cities we see in the rest of Unova, where everyone’s needs are easily met. It’s sort of a shame that not much of anything actually happens in Lentimas Town, because it could make a pretty fun backdrop for a battle against Team Plasma or similar, or even a Gym battle. Although there’s little of interest in the town itself, we do soon find something worth closer investigation just outside it…
The slopes of Reversal Mountain are inhabited by a variety of Pokémon that remind me again of Hoenn, since many of them are associated with the volcanic ecosystems around Mount Chimney – Numel, Spoink, and Skarmory, as well as a couple of desert Pokémon like Trapinch. We hack our way through to the main tunnel entrance, but realise there’s more to explore outside the mountain. Passing east through a long, overgrown defile, we find our way to a large, abandoned house, built in the same style as those in Lentimas Town. We scratch our heads over the place for a moment. It looks like it ought to be part of Lentimas Town, but it’s set so far away – whoever lived here didn’t want to be bothered. What’s more, the owner must have been quite wealthy; the building is much larger than any of those in the town. We consider ignoring it and getting on with our quest, until we remember that our quest is currently to find and talk to a couple of Dragon masters who probably aren’t going anywhere. I give a disarming smile and suggest that Jim take point; after all, there’s no telling what might have caused this place to be abandoned.
The house is a wreck inside, with furniture strewn everywhere, and seems to be infested with Ghost Pokémon. I call Barristan to keep them at bay, and we attempt to pick our way around the detritus to search for some clue to the owners’ fate. Most of the rooms are blocked off, but we do find a library downstairs. The reading material is surprisingly morbid – most of it details the sinister powers of a variety of Ghost- and Psychic-type Pokémon. Who would collect books like this, and why? When we emerge from the library, we find that almost all of the scattered furniture has been rearranged – by Ghost Pokémon trying to psych us out? Maybe not. We catch sight of what appears to be a human ghost, a little girl, muttering something about a dream of darkness and trying to find her parents and her Abra. We try to follow her, but find our path blocked by more piles of rubbish. We stumble across a couple of other Pokémon trainers hanging out – a backpacker simply exploring the place, and a decidedly nutty psychic who seems to be using the area’s latent energy as a power source. Both are singularly unhelpful in figuring out anything about the house’s former occupants. Every time we turn around, though, more debris has moved, and different rooms open up while others are sealed off. We catch another glimpse of the dead girl, who talks about hearing her father’s voice in her dream, and mentions something about the Lunar Wing – the powerful dream talisman associated with the crescent moon Pokémon, Cresselia. Hmm. With only one room left unexplored, we consider calling on all our Pokémon to shove aside the immense, ugly credenza blocking the doorway, but think better of it. Instead, we simply turn our backs on it and close our eyes. A moment later, there is a thunk, and we turn back to see that the door is clear. Entering the room, we find it rather differently furnished to all the other rooms in the building, and also substantially better lit. The light, Jim soon points out, is coming from a sparkling golden feather lying in the centre of the room. Gesturing to him to cover me in case something horrifying happens, I edge closer to the feather and pick it up. The ghost of the little girl appears. She explains to us that the Lunar Wing will be no help to her now, but urges us to return it to the Pokémon it came from, who will be waiting on a bridge. She disappears before we can ask for clarification.
So what happened here? It seems like the little girl must have fallen under Darkrai’s nightmare curse, prompting her family to research possible causes for her affliction and a way to cure it, hence the library. Clearly, they succeeded and found the Lunar Wing – so why, then, is her ghost haunting the place? Why was the house abandoned? Why was the Lunar Wing left behind? The only explanation I can think of is that the Lunar Wing didn’t work for some reason, and the girl died. Maybe she was already too far gone by the time her family found the talisman – or, perhaps even more unsettling, maybe it wasn’t Darkrai’s curse at all but something else that had similar symptoms?
More could have been made of this place, but I like it – the atmosphere is suitably eerie, and unlike the Old Chateau of Diamond and Pearl, it gives you a mystery to investigate and think about. If nothing else, it’s a heck of a lot more interesting than Lentimas Town proper.
I stash the Lunar Wing in my backpack. I have no idea where I’m supposed to take it, but I figure it’s not too much effort to take it out and wave around it in the air whenever I’m on a bridge. Jim and I put the abandoned house behind us and return to Reversal Mountain. Almost immediately upon entering, we encounter Bianca. She has a research project in the works here, and apparently needs our help with it. Bianca is studying Reversal Mountain in the hopes of learning something about Heatran, the legendary volcano Pokémon whose life force is supposedly tied to its home’s volcanic activity. She can’t get through the tunnels on her own, though – the Pokémon are too strong. She offers us her services as a healer if we will agree to be her bodyguards, and promises that she and her Musharna will do their best to pull their weight. We consent with a shrug. Reversal Mountain turns out to be a bog standard cave, really – albeit with a little more lava. We find the heart of the volcano, which is depressingly empty, and Bianca murmurs something about a Magma Stone (the item used in calling Heatran) to herself while taking some notes. I think she had been hoping to find the stone here, or at least somewhere in Reversal Mountain, but although we scour every inch of the place, it doesn’t turn up. Eventually, Jim and I grow bored and decide to leave through the eastern tunnels to Undella Town. Bianca stays behind – doubtless she wants to keep trying to summon Heatran and take its power for herself – and gives us a cheery farewell as we leave the stifling tunnels of the volcano behind us.
Pokémaniacal 