Lost in Scorchfall Desert.

Spoiler:

"How did I get lost HERE of all places?!" Tom yelled into the blazing sun above, kicking his foot onto the sandy ground below. He was in the middle of a desert, which was a pretty huge contrast from the calm serenity of the Serene Cave, his original destination.
He'd originally been planning to train his Rage attack - he'd figured that he let the thing control him too much for him to utilize it effectively - in the Serene Cave. He'd been lost there before, met some of the creatures hidden within, and figured that it would be the perfect place to train his moves. Mind you, Scorchfall was an even better place to train his rage attack, what with all of the Pokemon weak to his own element, but Tom didn't know if he could take the heat for long.

Douglas grumbled thoughtfully as he watched the Totodile trek through the sands. The heat of the dunes between them rose up into the sky, causing all around to dance with refraction. Not that he paid the temperature any attention, only slightly tugging on the brim of his hat in aid of warding the light from his eyes. Douglas decided to follow the Totodile, seeing where he would fetch up. Lost Pokémon had a useful habit of finding interesting places. And dying. The latter never really bothered Douglas anyway. It generally was disappointing though.

The Sandshrew watched the Totodile make his way across the distance between dunes, kicking up and sand seemingly dancing in a shimmering heat.
Grunting again, Douglas spat beside himself on the sand. He counted 3.4 seconds before the final drips dissipated.

"43°C..." He growled while absently scratching his belly.

Unslinging his backpack, the Sand mouse dropped it down on the dirt, allowing him to withdraw a large, thick root. It was tight skinned and appeared to be highly juicy. Tossing the small treasure hunters bag over his shoulder, Douglas bit into the succulent morsel. After years of needing hydration, he had grown accustomed to the bitter taste. He now even revelled in it; sweet stuff having long ago fallen by the wayside. He never understood others’ lust for sugar; it made his skull buzz in a way he found unpleasant. Sour was, of course, excellent; even more so when coupled with savoury dry. Douglas chuckled, amused at his private food assessment.

The Totodile ambled about in the sand, being thoroughly unproductive. As he moved over the next rise, Douglas buried the root behind his gums and ploughed his claws into the ground, buckets of sand suddenly skyward. He dug into the cool, subsoil sand and sped under the earth, the grainy and unstable tunnel collapsing behind him.

Reaching his projected exit point, Douglas turned up sharply and tried to propel himself from the earth as he reached the surface. The sand failed to support his claws, however, so only his head appeared above ground. Grains fell from his wide hat brim like water as he surveyed his exit point, quite ready to return downwards should danger lend itself a physical incarnation.

Douglas crawled out from the sand and shook himself off. Looking around again he realized, the Totodile not in his immediate sight line.

Spinning around, the treasure hunter couldn't help but say to himself, "Where did he go?"

Tom wiped his face of sweat, groaning. He wasn't particularly worried about the heat; he wasn't going to get dehydrated due to how his body naturally formed water. Plus, if he got really hot, he could always freeze his hand and cool himself down.
No, what worried him was the scarcity of food. There was the occasional cactus, but Tom had no idea how to get anything to eat from the things. Besides that, there didn't seem to be anything edible in the desert. Mind you, he wasn't that worried yet; he'd only been in the desert for half an hour or so, and he usually found a companion on his treks. It had turned into a sort of routine, in fact; he'd get lost, he'd stay lost for up to three hours, and then he'd find someone from the guild to take him back. Or, in Ace's case, take him trekking even more, which was just as fun.
The Totodile's thoughts were interrupted, however, upon hearing a voice. It was a quiet voice, one that he was surprised that he had even noticed, but it was a voice nonetheless. "Hello?" He shouted into the nothingness, "Anybody there?"

Douglas retreated into the crevasse left by the collapsed hole the moment he caught sight of the Totodile, managing to be inside but immobile as the crocodile turned slowly toward his curse. The desert rat felt his heart beat slow, as if it was working in tandem with him in effort to remain concealed.

While Douglas had no lack of confidence in himself, he did not make a habit of taking unneeded risks. The Totodile before Douglas may have looked little more than an overgrown, out of style handbag, it still needed to be regarded with caution. 'Never underestimate somethin's innate ability to screw you over', the Douglas' father had a habit of saying.

Unbeknownst to the treasure hunter, he had a few innate abilities of his own. Passed down from his mother, Douglas was said to have the 'Skin of the Dunes". This heritage made the Sandshrew seem almost spectral in sandstorms, nearly undifferentiable to all but the most keen eyed of Pokemon. This seemed to occur to a lesser effect in generally gritty conditions, making it seem as if Douglas had been drawn with water colours that then had been treated to an accidental wipe by a passing damp cloth.

Coupled with this was Douglas' learnt attack 'Night slash', showing that his father was good for more than a passing word. This move was something Douglas had not yet perfected to the level of his father, success occurring only in the times between dusk and dawn. The side of the dune Douglas now huddled in the shadow of seemed to be melding these two skill sets into a strange distorting affect.

This had happened in previous instances, to varying degrees of strength. This had allowed the hatted recluse to evade many a foe, but at all times it had been an unconscious event, meaning Douglas had no knowledge of his abilities. Though this fact would have no doubt been revealed to him had he not had made a point of avoid company of any shape or make.

Douglas simply put his continued evasion down to luck, skill and the general lack of observational talent.

Not that he was always undetected. And he had somehow made a mistake. The blue biped stood but meters away, seemingly resting his very eyes upon Douglas' semi-exposed rump.

He could do little now but listen to the desert winds overlay his living bass line while the Totodile made his next move.

(Quick warning that my responses will probably be limited to biweekly responses or monthly responses due to how time consuming exam revision is.
Also, I think you mixed up crevice and crevasse - crevasses are fissures in ice rather than rock.
And sorry for the low quality of the post. I'm sleepy. I'm placing priority on my exams. I'm out of practice.)

Tom began walking in the direction of the voice, of the movement he had only barely noticed. "I know that there's someone there, and I don't think that you're one of the ferals," He called, desperate for contact with other sentient beings. "I'd really appreciate it if you'd just... I don't know, show yourself? Say hi?" The Totodile stopped in front of the rump of a creature which was hiding in a crevice, its rump exposed and visible, albeit only barely distinguishable from the sandy texture of the ground. "You know," he said, "I can see you right now. Come on, you're not fooling anybody."

Douglas had never been in a situation like this before. Here he was, completely caught out in the middle of a desert, by a small, blue dinosaur. It was laughable really.

It was not that the Sandshrew had never been caught before, it's just that normally it was more dire. Like being caught by a rampaging krookodile that Douglas may or may not have been in some way attached to. But this was just silly. Instead of a large, evil dark type presiding over him at his three time Douglas height, there was a tiny blue thing that was actually slightly shorter then him. It was incredibly awkward.

So, with nothing else, Douglas feel to the side, his underbelly exposed and began to laugh to himself. It wasn't a loud laugh, it seemed more like he was coughing, particularly with the movement of his body. But laugh he did, what else could he do?

If Tom had eyebrows, he'd undoubtedly have raised one. He understood why the creature was in the sand - it was hiding, after all - but why the laughter? "Why're you laughing?" He asked, confused at the sandshrew's odd behavior. He shook his head as if to ward his confusion away. "Anyway, hi there. I'm Tom. Do you know how to get out of this place?" He waved his arm in a horizontal arch to specify that he was talking about the desert. "Maybe get to the guild? Or at least get some food to eat? Please? I can tell you're much more familiar to this place than I am."

Douglas stood in front on the Totodile. "Yeh, you could say that..." The Sandshrew considered just literally burying his head in the sand leaving the water type for dead.

But then he had a better idea.

"Yeh, yeh I do. In fact, you've come pretty far." He scratched the back of his head and turned towards the west, at a near perfect right angle to the Totodile's point of origin. "Over there."

He wasn't sure if the sorry looking crocodile was buying his tale, but Douglas persisted, pointing now and tugging on his hat, displacing a few stubborn grains and giving them the energy to bounce and roll down the treasure hunter's broad back. "Over there is a buildin'. Night comes fast in the desert an' the place will be our shelter." He coughed, "Trust me, you don't want to be aroun' at night. It'll be more then a Sandshrew you come to buried in the earth."

"So we gotta hurry. We won't be reachin' it all that fast." The Sandshrew strode off, pulling his pack straps tight and knowing that regardless of the Totodile's opinion he would be loathe to be alone as he was before. "Ah'm Douglas. That'll be all you need ta know."

Then he paused, deciding to add an after thought. "Don't touch the hat."

The reptile stared into the distance, where Douglas said that shelter was. He was a bit skeptical; the shrew didn't seem to be the most honest type in the world, considering that he'd hidden from Tom when all that the reptile was doing was asking for some aid. Besides that, Tom couldn't see how the shrew could know for sure where shelter was in this monotonous wasteland. Still, it wasn't like Tom could get more lost, and while Douglas didn't seem to be used to helping others, he certainly didn't seem to be the sort of person who wanted to harm others. On the contrary; he seemed pretty nice.

"Sure, sure. I won't touch it." Tom said distractedly as he fiddled with the defense scarf which he was wearing. "Thanks for helping me out." Tom began walking in that direction. Then stopped. "Wait, you said 'we'. Are you coming with me?"

Douglas nodded, his arms folded across his chest. "Aye. We." He paused, surveying the horizon. "It's all in the angles. This desert is one of flattest and dullest places Ah've ever seen. Not so much as a pebble as yer way point. You gotta learn it all the hard way... The hard way so you won't forget it..." The treasure hunter shrugged, turning back to the Totodile.

"Or, ya can have someone like me. It's alllll in the angles. If Ah gesture..." Douglas waved his hand in the general area he said the shelter was, " You will head that way. Issue being that over distance you will drift off course, assuming you don't already start heading off wrong anyway... Breather's have a natural inclination to walk in a big circle. Happens ta everyone if they lack a reference point. Ya can miss a whole square of land the size of a wailord by the distance of 5 if you walk even a short distance outta here!"

Douglas laughed heartily. "If'en ya wants to, you can go right ahead and walk. Ah'm going there anyways. Nights are dangerous. An' cold. Burrowin' an' rollin' is faster than walkin', so if you want to, no skin off my nose... But yer gonna get lost." The sandmouse shifted his pack and laughed again. "It's the fastest way. An' safe... Er."

At a loss as for what to say next, Douglas again strode out into the desert, expecting the crocodile to follow. "Uh," the sandshrew said without turning back. "It's a temple. There'll be food there too."

"A temple? Huh; I haven't explored one of those yet. Maybe when I come here more prepared, I could check it out thoroughly, eh?" Tom, indeed, followed behind Douglas. "How could there be food in the temple, though? Are there sentients living there?"
"Actually, why are you here? Are you a part of the gui-woah!" That, of course, was when he tripped on something very inconspicuously laying in the sand.

This dice is not existing.

(Sorry for the short post, IDK what to say actually.)

Douglas span quickly, being just fast enough to catch the grains of sand falling upon his heels as the Totodile face planted.

The sandshrew stood in front of the clumsy blue fool, shaking his head.

"Now what have ya gone an' done?"

(*stares at the minuscule pile of words that I hesitate to call a post*)

Tom stood up and rubbed his head, grumbling incoherently. "I dunno, I tripped on something, I guess." He glanced at the offending item. "Huh; an orb. Do you know how to appraise an orb? I have no idea whether this is a hurl orb or a radar orb or an itemizer orb or what." He shivered upon saying the last word; being turned into an item would be a fate worse than death. Tom passed the orb to Doug.

(Hey, take a look at the size of my other posts. :c I'm sorry I can't always write 500+ to one of your paragraphs.)

Douglas took the orb gently in one hand, rubbing it lightly to polish it's surface. "Ah am not the best at this..." Douglas positioned the the orb delicately atop his digging claws, reducing contact to the tips. He struck the curved surface, sharply scratching the the shell with his finger, causing a metallic ring echoing out from the deep blue sphere. The shrill note sang out across the still desert air. It hung steadily, slowly fading as it crossed the dunes.

Douglas smiled. "Hiah C. Brilliant."

The sandshrew glanced sideways and coughed abruptly, remembering his company. The soft expression disappeared, hardening over like a metapod in distress.

The treasure hunter clutched the orb for a moment before dropping it back in the Totodile's waiting hand. "It's probably a radar orb. Ah can't be certain without activatin' it... Ah'm pretty sure though. There're common enough."

Douglas shrugged, preparing to continue. "If it is a radar... They're handy ta hav' 'round. If we need to use it Ah'll tell ya about it Ah guess. Lets go to the temple."

"So you distinguish it from the sound it makes? Cool!" Tom tapped the orb himself and listened as a pure note emitted from the orb.
Once he had finished examining the orb, Tom began walking in the direction of the tower. "So... The temple. Yeah, I was going to ask you something... Oh, yeah, why is there food in the temple? Do sentients live there or something? Or maybe they're just berries that found their way into the temple?" Tom was getting more and more excited about the temple, almost (but not quite) to the point of forgetting why he was going there in the first place. "Do you know what made it, or what it was made for? Was it made for religious reasons, perhaps?"