It's a bright sunny spring day and the Viridian City centre had never looked better. After the dark cold winter some colour is coming back: the once bare trees now show a rudimentary display of green hues that will define them in the warmer months as a new generation of leaves erupt into being; the dead flowerbeds begin their path to recovery with the tentative growth of the weakly coloured petals that become richer and stronger over time, poking gently out of the rich virgin soil; the growth of the topiaries that line the main street is no longer stunted, their restriction from growing was over. Soon we may see some Spearow nests under construction in the leafy depths. The winter weather had been the oppressive omnipresent force and now the sun floating higher and higher in the sky with each passing day with a renewed blazing shine was the liberator, laying the foundations for a new era of frenzied photosynthesis.
Not far from the centre is a stone bowl that had been dug into the ground fifty years previously by a couple of Machokes. The oppressive winter condemns any sort of colourful expression and as such only dead branches and twigs are allowed to exist amongst the brown soil within the bowl. We have to wait until the Earth wobbles on its axis and allows maximum radiation to strike this part of the world before we remember why such an ancient, crumbling, derelict, worn stone bowl could ever exist here in the middle of a bustling urban environment. Surely it's just a waste of space? There are plenty of other areas of nature around the city that are in a much better condition and even have colour during the coldest and loneliest nights of wintry pessimism. But, as the Earth wobbles and the first plants shyly emerge, it comes back to us. Here, the golden orb hovering above the clouds shines freedom onto the bowl, heralding the beginning of a bloom.
But this bowl isn't important to the story. Instead, let's ignore it for the time being; push it to the back of your mind. Walk past the stone bowl in a northerly direction and keep going for at least a kilometre (0.62 miles; 3281 feet for the imperially minded), down the street lined with the cream coloured terraced buildings with their mahogany-tiled roofs that are a host to a multitude of different small businesses and shops and the like, all of them having small balconies on the second floor, hanging over the doorways like a porch. Watch your feet though and don't trip over the uneven cobbles that were laid on the ground a century and a half ago, and also keep your eye out for scurrying Rattata. They may be purple and stand out immensely against the whole street, but if you're too busy watching what merchandise the businesses and shops have displayed in their front window and thinking whether to purchase Morph Mail or Surf Mail for the P$30 bargain (the usual cost being P$50 of course), you could be arranging a sudden meeting between the cobbles and your face. And let me tell you, the cobbles aren't very face-friendly.
Before long you would have walked the kilometre, the centre just a figurative dot in the distance. Now stop and turn to your right. You may think the building you're now looking at is identical to the many you've already passed: cream coloured with a balcony hanging over the entrance. Only this one has the sign Viridian Ventures Bookstore propped up in the window, behind some of the latest books on sale on view to the outside world. Ivy has grown up from the dirty cobbled street below the small window ledge and encrusted itself in the cream walls around the window and had so far spread roughly half way up the building, but apart from these minor details Viridian Ventures Bookstores is indistinguishable from any other shop you may pass down this street.
Enter the bookshop and greet the person sitting behind the counter on an old spindly chair. He is an old white haired man who clearly has a passion for books; otherwise he wouldn't sit besides the till for seven hours a day, perhaps serving no more than ten customers in that time period. One would maybe wonder how the shop manages to keep float financially. It seems that the white haired man sits there reading the various books he sells one at a time, only looking up when he feels the presence of a human entering his shop or to ward of a wandering Pidgeotto or a curious Rattata. Next to him is a Nidorino, quietly snoozing at the foot of the spindly chair.
Viridian Ventures Bookstores is not a large shop: the counter is immediately on the right as soon as you step in, and there is probably a metre's gap between the counter and the bookcases that rise to the ceiling so the man does not have a long walk to retrieve and replace books. The opposite side of the shop is at most a ten metre stroll away. The bookcases are old elm structures stretching the length of the shop each with seven shelves each chock full of heavy volumes and small pamphlets alike. A new genre of book begins every fifteen or so books across and white signs with the man's handwriting in block capitals are stuck to the top shelf where a new genre begins. Other than this simple categorization, there is no order to where the books are placed. It is not a large collection of books by any means, but relative to the size of the shop it is pretty impressive.
Head past the counter, move down to the third bookcase from the door and sidle down the row, careful not to stumble into the towering bookcases either side of you. Look up and you will see one of the man's white signs with Travel handwritten. There are seven shelves with various travel books, travel guides, map books et cetera with a plethora of styled and coloured spines: some are written about Kanto, several about Johto, others about specific places like The Ultimate Guide to Cinnabar Island and What To Expect at Mt. Coronet and a couple detailing where the best places to find grass Pokémon in Hoenn. You can look at these another time. Avert your eyes from these books and lower your gaze. On the second shelf from the bottom you may see a bright red spine sticking out from the less vibrantly coloured books either side. You will see it is titled My Experiences in the Whirl Islands and Other Johto Appendages.
The author of the book is a person called Tamzin Bewley.
Now move to the right slightly and look at the top most shelf under Travel. What you're looking for is a thin, dark blue book about 15cm in height. Can you see it? No? Look a little further to the right. See it now? It's nestled neatly in between Sights of Pewter City and There Could Only Be One Blackthorn City.
The Oojvo Guide. You've found it. As the white-haired man behind the counter might tell you, that book has been there for sixteen years and nobody has ever bought it. You might have noticed that when you picked it up the exposed areas were covered in a thick layer of dust. Not so much as a fingerprint would be found indented in the dust. The pages of the book haven't seen proper daylight for almost 200 months so clearly no one is interested in it or haven't done a good enough job of looking for it. And here's I am telling you to have a look at it. What's so special about it then? you may ask. To tell you the truth, there is nothing special about the book. Well apart from the fact it lay gathering dust in a little known bookshop in the corner of Viridian City for sixteen years having even been touched by anyone in that time span.
Until today that is.