Mattress Village

Mattress Village is a relatively small, peaceful, yet mysterious town nestled in a corner of Eastshield, on the border of Trans-Antarctica. It is reknowned as the source of several famous penguins, including the folks of Skybound, TurtleShroom's Family, Dan Baronews, Roy Dibbs, and That Trainer.

It has a decent-sized and historic commercial district on its paved main street. Its resedential district, however, is as sparse as the countryside, though still in Unoian jurisdiction. It is here where now-famous penguins spent most of their chick years.

Layout
Mattress Village sits in a light bowl-shaped depression in the earth, known as Uno Valley. A steep mountain forms the west side of the basin, and a gently sloping hill back to level ground forms the east.

Commercial
The peaceful village sits on foothills, with mountains to the west. A two-lane road runs from the base of the first mountain and then about five miles east. This is the Main Street. In the deepest part of Uno Valley (which, in actuality, is but about fifteen feet's difference from the eastern side) is a cluster of little shops, buildings, and services: Mattress' Villages historic downtown. None of them extend above three stories.

Heading due west down Main Street cumulates at a dead end cul-de-sac, with a fountain in the roundabout. Right at the evry base of the mountain (and somewhat carved into it) is the Town Hall. Oddly, the Town Hall is connected to what seems to be a local power plant unaffliated with the Governance. As one would find by entering, the reason is justified and saves a lot of money and energy from the grid as a whole.

Facing one's back to the Town Hall, one can see all the way out of the village on a clear day. A few subdivisions of Main Street branch out into other little buildings and such, but it's mostly a straight path.

Resedential
Departing from downtown and following Main Street, one realizes as they ascend the light slope that the place becomes more and more sparse and less dense. Soon, Main Street is all one can see behind them and in front, where little dirt roads branch off to either houses or igloos with mailboxes. Main Street, meanwhile goes off into the horizon to reconnect with Antarctica's highway system. It is here that the Jones', Baronews', Dibbs', and others' residences are scattered.

If one was to continue east for about thirty minutes, they would come across a stone arch with fences stretching to either side. In this arch is a little shack, with two beams (like that of toll booths) for ingoing and outgoing traffic. A member of the Mattress Village Police- which is more like organized vilgantes than any actual law enforcement -will be on gaurd. Sometimes, the Mayor orders the building shut, forbidding in traffic in our out of the city. This is normally reserved for disasters, war, and local battles with a small gang. Officially, the place is called Traveller's Entrance Gate, but most just call it Travelling Gateway for short.

Just pass the Gateway, Dan Baronews Reigonal Airport would be seen. It is mostly able to place one in a small one-engine aircraft for transport to a larger airport to go home, or entertain small-time aviators and barn-stormers.

Services

 * Honest Oakey's Really Good Motel: "Trust us, you'll love it here!" - this motto is routinely plastered on the building. It is one of the taller buildings, at a whopping two stories, and it has six rooms to sleep in, plus the lobby, and then a shared bathroom. Despite what one may think, the hotel is actually an adequte stay. The owner, Oakey, has a large laboratory in his base, however, to entertain his true passion: PKMN-Jitsu research!


 * It Is Well Drugstore: a one-story brick building, the It Is Well Drugstore supplies prescriptions to residents and- to improve market sales in times of low sickness -toys, like baseball bats or yo-yos. It also sells tin foil in bulk.


 * Bailey's Bakery and Bail: a weird combination of bread/pastries/desserts/cakes/goodies and bail bonds, you can get a delicious treat AND your relative out of jail, all at once! Bailey, the strange puffle that operates the facility, refuses to explain why she bakes AND sureties bail.


 * City Library: a small library, barely larger than a bookstore, which holds a bunch of rare, vintage, and maybe even magical/powerful books. This is partially because of the age of the undisturbed town, and possibly because the pack-rat, hoarding librarians refuse to upgrade or clean anything out. Conspiracy theorists on tour love to hang out here.

Homes

 * The Jones House: where TurtleShroom and all his ancestors hailed from. The large two-story, square, flat-roofed brick house with the chimney and the Turtlenator flag flying on the pole nearby. It is green-tinted and a perfect rectangular prism. It is currently unoccupied, save the rarely-seen mayor, who himself is said to be a TurtleShroom relative.


 * The Baronews Igloo: the origins of Dan himself. This is CP's Blue Deluxe Igloo model, and has a shed where several types of watercraft are kept behind it, even though Mattress Village's nearest body of water is an adequate sized, partially-thawed lake several miles farther east.


 * The Dibbs Home: a humble, one-story, five-room wooden home with two fireplaces. It is also tinted a light green, but it has a genuine sloped roof.

Other homes, some larger, some smaller, are scattered in the rural areas, and from these, the folks of SkyBound set out on their way, as did others, such as That Trainer (of Periwinkle Town fame), and Haley.

Other places

 * The Secret's Swash/Site of the Termination of Ivan Jones: in means still totally unknown, TurtleShroom's father's brother, Crazy Uncle Ivan, was, in a flash of purple light and a tornado, wiped off of the universe, shortly after he had come home shouting "THE SECRET; THE SECRET!!". This mile-long, black line was the path of that tornado, and then a large circle where the lightning appeared.
 * According to legend, a huge snowstorm with purple tints in the cloud, almost a blizzard, was chasing Ivan as he was shouting about strange things at everyone in town. He burst into his family's house and began to tell them about "THE SECRET", but he was cut off as the blizzard formed a purple F2 tornado, snaking down no more than a mile away. As the family fled for their storm shelter, Ivan refused, saying that "THE SECRET" wanted him, not the town. He ran out to confront the tornado, which had, as funnel clouds do, changed direction and started racing for the family home. He ran towrds the tornado, and it towards him, until the two collided. Two strikes of magenta-colored lightning follwoed, and, as quickly as it came, the tornado dissipated, and the storm began to break up as if Ivan himself stopped it.
 * To this day, the entire town- even those no longer living there -refuses to speak of it, and no one ever figured out exactly what "THE SECRET" is. As for the Swash, the ground is still charred as black as night, and nothing can grow there or within a few feet of the circle. No snow settles there, either, and those who walk on the ground become ill for hours with migraine headaches. It ends about one hundred yards away from the Jones residence, and the family is scared of it as much as the town, for, at night, evil moose are rumored to patrol it. From the place where the tornado touched down to where Ivan died, this swash still makes Mattress Village a popular conspiracy theorist's hotbed, and is why It Is Well Drugstor sells tin foil.


 * Mattress Village City Hall: a suspicious and locked one-story, wide building of white marble, the City Hall is also directly connected to a power plant of sorts, which runs on coal from the mountains. This plant, according to meter readings, generates tens of thousands of wattage, consumed entirely each month. Whatever is in there- the mayor, possibly -uses every last zap, and no one really can tell why. The mayor himself is mysterious, too, in that he only delivers his speeches, authority, messages, and ordiancnes in writing, never making public appearences, never meeting his town council in person, and he has life tenure. He never leaves the building, though creatures waddling out very late at night tell horrifying tales of a large, otherworldly wraith, connected to a machine, wheeling itself towards the Jones residence once every few weeks.
 * All that is really known about the mayor is that he is a Jones family member, and a really, REALLY old one. If the conspirists and witnesses are to be believed, this being has a deep, slow, raspy voice, he repeats the same word a lot, and he's usually in a "h... a... p... p... y..." mood, always humming a cheerful song to himself, as if he is content with his life. They go further to say that his machine is four feet tall and the wraith, attached to it, is forty feet tall. He is gaseous-like, with no solid form, able to shift in size and shape, like smoke or steam. He is a jet black, and whatever clothes he is wearing are as gaseous as he is. Witnesses think that he may have once been a penguin. Those who were able to look at him were not able to tell what he was, but they did think he formed some sort of appendage and waved. His smile, they claimed, was not scary, but actually friendly-looking. The Jones family chuckles nervously if asked about the being.
 * Some say the wraith is connected both to the family, Ivan, and "THE SECRET". In fact, the wraith may have been a victim of "THE SECRET", just, instead of deleted, he was deformed and changed into whatever he is now, either as "punishment from a sky programmer", as the superstitious townfolk belive, or he just exploded into that from knowing "THE SECRET". The truth of some things should probably not be grasped by mere mortal penguins.


 * Saint Barkjon Governance Telenacle: a small place run by a priest, this Telenacle holds Tech-Time once every three weeks. The building is so small that the priest travels to two other rural telenacles to hold up a shortage of Governance employees, giving Tech-Time there, too.


 * Jones' Tree Mausoleum: the place where most TurtleShroom relatives are laid to rest. Originally, the little cemetary was just a tree, where TurtleShroom's parents (who died in the early 2000s) were buried. Roslyn, the last Jones to leave, tended the graves and then left. After succeeding in life, TurtleShroom (penguin) ordered the place restored and had a beautiful mausoleum erected for his parents, where they were placed. Headstones around the tree and the area denote other ancient Joneses... as if the current family wasn't enough!


 * Oakey's Lab: Oakey operates a large PKMN-Jitsu laboratory out of his motel basement. Any aspiring PKMN-Jistu Trainer should come to him for exclusive upgrades, items, and advice.

Customs
Mattress Village is as famous for its traditions as it is for being a horrid conspiracy hotbed.

There's a reason TurtleShroom is what he is, and why a lot of his family is, too. Before TurtleShroom's generation, the entire family had never ventured past the Travellers' Gateway. As they were largely isolated outside of ardeous trips to the "big city" markets, the penguins that lived there mingled in their morality and never really saw what the rest of the world thought of it.

Due to this, the famous "dying principles" (Stability is Paramount, Do What's Right, Honesty, etc. etc.) carried on without change for generations longer than bigger cities. The hick town was centered around these, and still is: Mattress Village's town hall has "STABILITY IS PARAMOUNT" engraved above its doors. The city's municipal flag has similar treatment, baring such ideas as well.

The population is also deeply superstitious. All of them share a common hatred of magic, mainly because of poor Ivan. They are strong belivers in the "sky programmers", and think that "THEY" are watching them at all times. They all believe in "THE SECRET", but have no idea what it is. Coincidently, BOF records state that, excluding the future Daniel II, there has not been a fluent Fourth Wall Breaker (Level Three and up) hatched in Mattress Village in over sixty years (older than the town itself!).

The people of Mattress Village also frequently preach about the evils of Cream Soda, the dishonesty of dancing, the dangers of magic, and how one should NEVER, NEVER trust any puffle that isn't Bailey of the bonds and bakeries shop. TurtleShroom makes trips home and tells them all about "evil puffle shareholders", so the town hates them all.

As if it couldn't get any weirder, the community has, since its founding, banned the consumption, production, possession, and everyhing else about Cream Soda. It is one of the few villages that the great Rockhopper hasn't travelled to because of this.

The town also seems to be a self-censor. The people are very TurtleShroom-ish in their hatred of any suggestive content. All of them dress modestly (for a penguin), and they all applaud the Inqusition. TurtleShroom and family swear they have nothing to do with this, and considering they came from Mattress Village, maybe this time capsule of a city made them, not the other way around.

Tortugadesetas is one of the exceptions to the Mattress decency factory, having been churned out twisted, corrupt, and villanious. This may be because Tortuga played with the local gangs as a chick.

Crime
As was said, the only persistant crime is Cream Soda smuggling and gang activity. A small band of delinquients, known solely as "The Bears", ride around on motorcycles and frustrate and sometimes harm the community. The mayor usually shuts the town down when they attack, so they have to escape by the mountains and what-not.

The SkyBound chicks famously defeated them right before they left for the world, so they have been both humbled and lessened in activity. That, and they're scared of the possibility that old residents could sic their power on them, and have them arrested for being organized criminals, harrassers, assaulters, and even trolls. The Group Criminal PWNage Act could pick the leaders off, too, so they have gone underground.

Cream Soda is also hyperinflated in this community, fetching double in the black market as what it would normally. Many underground clubs and speakeasies have been rumored to exist, but so far, none of them have been caught.

Tourism
Conspiracy goons are always present in Mattress Village. If your town had a possibly malignant spirit for a mayor, a one-mile strip of evil black power, a library of books far too old to be there, only one manhole, a power plant attached to city hall, a ban on cream soda, moose in black vans (supposedly), a non-natural death, "THE SECRET", a community of backwards weirdos, a rural setting, a magic hating populace, AND several influential figures just HAPPENED to all come from there, AND your townsfolk are still fairly happy (albeit paranoid), wouldn't you find tin foil freaks around your house, too?

It's simply natural for conspiracy goons to frequent this otherwise sleepy village.

Relative distance

 * The nearest city of ten thousand to Mattress Village is roungly seventy miles away.


 * The nearest incorpated community is thirty miles away... -up the western mountains. (Population is forty one.)


 * The nearest airport is roughly thirty miles away... -and it can only serve small recreational aircraft.
 * Technically, the nearest real airport is Pengu Town International Airport. "Real", in this context, is the ability to hold commercial flights. DBRA can only hold recreational aircraft, so to get to the Village by air, one would need to land in Pengu Town, take a recreational plane, and fly to DBRA.

Trivia

 * Mattress Village is primarily a parody of Earth Bound's Onett village, but carries a few references to Pokemon's Pallet Town.