Part 65: No Man's Land

Hello everyone and welcome back.





Over here on the right side of Route 5 we can find another entrance into Samsara Cave and a Relic Song wall that I had missed.



The wall opens up a Hoopa portal.



And it drops us back in the Nightmare Badlands.





It turns out that Hoopa has been hanging out here the whole time, meaning that technically Adam wasn't stuck here at all. After the events of the previous update, he's completely disappeared from the game. So I like to pretend that after catching it, Amy takes it back to Adam so he can escape.



If we take this to a guy in Amphitrite City, he'll give us an item that turns it into its "unbound" form. I will not remember to do this.



We're actually extremely close to the end of the LP. The last few sidequests take almost no time at all, so in just a handful of updates, we'll be done.



The meat of today's update will take place in No Man's Land.







The standard "not as complex as it appears" caveat applies here. There's a whole lot of nothing here in the trackless, snowy wastes in between regions.



There's a lot of useless strength boulders and a bunch of other debris that shows it has been an extremely long time since anyone has set foot here.



All the DPPt orb items appear here. We can't even catch Dialga and Palkia until we finish the postgame story mode.



Jet Stream is an insurgence-only move that only works in Doubles, and it gives your ally a priority move next turn.





There's a lot of wandering around without finding very much.





We don't catch Articuno, sadly. It was the first legendary pokemon I ever caught in Red, but it didn't want to stay in its balls here.







This way is actually a trap. No matter how you shove these boulders aside, you wind up being blocked in.



Though it only now occurs to my dumb ass that I could have Heart Swapped over and escaped the maze.



When we investigated the Relic Song wall, if we had kept going up, we'd have reached the far side of the boulders instead.



I'm sorry if this is kinda hard to follow. There isn't much to say about this area. It's very samey.





Finally after a few minutes of wandering, we reach the top of the map.



The Alpha Temple uses the same tileset as the Ancient Ruins in Torren. I'm sure that's just because of Essentials, but it does also imply they were built by the same ancient people.



Unlike the Ancient Ruins, there is nothing to pick up in any of the side rooms.



Top left exit lets us continue.







I have no idea what this is referring to. Relic Song doesn't do anything here.



Top exit is the way forward.



It's much more straightforward from this point on.



This Rare Candy is the only item in the temple.





I looked at the map in Essentials for this place. Hidden off in the black to the right is a fully coded tesseract rift that creates a boulder, which creates a shortcut south across this lava.

We're actually in a large room that connects to the first hallway, just on the far side of the lava pool.



The place is really cool, but it's empty and kinda eerie too.



The northern exit is the way forward. Every where else is just an empty dead end.








birth







This room is the end of the line in the temple.





You will not just... leave me alone, will you? I've already got the artifact I was looking for. That up there is a decoy- I was hoping to lure you out to talk. It's some kind of music... instrument, maybe? I'm not completely sure what it does, but it seems to be a huge source of power.

If you indulge in a little lateral thinking, it becomes immediately obvious what Taen picked up. If not, then just hang on for a while.



I can work with that. But YOU will not stop getting in my way. You're not going to stop me. Slow me down, maybe, but I'll just keep coming back. This is my destiny. I am going to succeed, no matter how many losses I take on the way there.







It's the exact same team from the last time we fought him, their levels are just boosted a bit.



Delta Darmanitan has a 17 level disadvantage.



There's only one way it could have ended.







His dudes are faster, but...





A common theme you might notice is my guys tanking his attacks and then just one-shotting his shit.







Ramses is a fighting killing machine between Psychic and Gale Wings Acrobatics.







Glory is my lowest leveled mon and even he still completely shut down a full third of Taen's team. Even better, Outrage was neutral against Gallade. Don't fuck with Delta Arcanine!





To be fair... I hadn't changed my team at all since we last battled. I wasn't expecting to win. I was only trying to make a point.

You know what, I would actually believe that. Claiming you weren't trying lets you save a tiny bit of ego in the face of that huge ass beating we just delivered him.

You can't hold me down forever, kid. This is my time. Plus, I have... someone else interested in my efforts. You're not going to see me losing to you again.



I'm never coming back here because it's so far out of the way, but once we finish the last postgame sidequest, what I call the Finale, a move tutor sets up shop behind this altar.



He, uh, teaches specific pokemon some hilariously broken stuff. The wiki doesn't clarify who can learn what, but it does say "these are mainly learned by legendary pokemon."

Which is a pity because I'd love to bling out my team with some hilariously broken stuff. Tell me Charsi with V-Create wouldn't be hilarious. Or imagine Ramses using Psycho Boost.

Anyway, there's nothing more to do here. So we have to walk out. Can't use an escape rope for... reasons.



Thankfully we can dial the PikaTaxi guy to come pick us up.



This is definitely abusing his goodwill.





Breaking news!



We are live with an exclusive broadcast. The world-famous Utira Library has seen a serious break-in in the last hour. Officials are still investigating what was stolen. I'd like to introduce you to our special guest, who is currently taking care of the library during a leave of absence of its former owner, Zachary. Can you describe the situation for our audience?
Uh... sure? I don't work here, though.
No need to be modest, I'm sure the people of Utira are benefitting from your support.
I... uh...
Wonderful.



How could I possibly work at-
... bzzt ... bzzt ... Oh dear, it seems we're experiencing technical difficulties. We must have lost contact with our special guest.
You literally just made the noise "bzzt" with your mouth.
It seems that officials are finding lots of books scattered about on "Unovan word structures." Books about the Reshi-, Zek-, and Kyu- prefixes are everywhere, I'm told. We will update you when we have more information.









Sounds like a lead on Taen. And that's just where we're going to go... next time.

NEXT TIME: The Great Namehere