SEPTEMBER INTRO LOG

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SEPTEMBER INTRO LOG

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→ 09/01 The Arrival

「 Welcome to the world of POKEMON 」

"It will come to be. And in exchange..."
You wake up with a start. Thunder rolls across the sky, steamrolling the voices and the fog out of your head and replacing them with mottled grey on white— greyer in some spots than others, and if you're one of the unlucky ones, the greyest leaks cold water right down on your face. Drip... drip... drip... the intervals in between getting shorter and shorter until

SPLOOSH!!

The entire ceiling caves in and water and soggy drywall collapses onto your head, and those of several dozen others sharing this very open, very wet room. Rain pours down from overhead through the large hole in the middle of the ceiling, but the perimeter of the room is a little drier: about a dozen cots line the walls, not enough for the number of people here and so most must pick themselves off the ground. Other than a few curtained dividers now scattered across the flooding floor, the room is otherwise bare. White, grey, and very wet.

"Uh..." The only dry people in the room stand in the doorway: a girl who pulls her hood further over her head to keep the water off her face as she steps in to help the person nearest her up, and a boy who hangs back behind her, hesitant, staring at his feet a little guiltily until he looks up and catches somebody's eye, and he too steps forward to help people onto their feet. They introduce themselves as Chiaki Nanami and Minato Arisato, explain that they've arrived here a while ago in the exact same way as everybody here, and show off the purple and grey bands around their right and left ankles respectively, as if that is proof enough. Your unconscious bodies may or may not have been investigated while you were unconscious, but every person here will find some sort of band tattooed around a part of their body, some with a single pattern and some with two, some matching somebody else's and some unique to their own.

For those who want to hang back and ask questions, Nanami and Minato stick around and do their best to answer them, otherwise, you're free to go out in the rain and get soaked and wonder why this is your life.

→ 09/01 The Surroundings

"Ichi help me think of headings. I am so bad at writing headings" - Card

It's actually not that bad, all things considering. Sure, it's raining all day nonstop, but the rain varies between pouring and sprinkling and is weirdly lukewarm, like a shower that doesn't have enough water pressure and can't get hot enough. Strange creatures called Pokemon roam about the town of Toran, many hiding from the rain and liable to attack when people unexpectedly stumble upon them trying to find shelter themselves, especially the arm-hungry bears who just want to nap under trees, but others are friendly and eager to help people sweep water out of buildings and patch up roofs.

Whether you woke up with one or stumbled across them later, you have your own strange creature too. Be friends. If you don't know anything about Pokemon, there are plenty of elementary schoolers eager to laugh at your ignorance and teach you everything you need to know about catching and training Pokemon, little four-year-old escorts around Toran to show you where to find them in the lake at the center of the island, the surrounding ocean, the patches of grass throughout the town. The ground is perpetually marshy, thick mud and tall grass slowing foot traffic and the spiderwebs of pavement connecting the other structures around town are covered with half squashed, wiggling worms(egments) that are almost unavoidable to step on unless it's during a lighter drizzle when the bird Pokemon are free to swoop down to pick the roads clean. Want to get some experience in Pokemon battling? These literal children will gladly pulverize you to the point of blacking out and take your money or whatever fun little trinkets you have in your pockets.

The building everybody arrived in turns out to be a hospital, with an adjacent building being a hospital for Pokemon- a Pokemon Center- which offers free shelter for travellers but is currently overflowing with people who are stranded on this island, even with so many visitors forced to resort to long term lodging in the town's small inn. Both the hospital and Pokemon Center stand right along the lakeside, water overflowing and nearly lapping against the front steps, which is home to an abnormally large 30-foot long Gyarados. It thrashes about in the middle of the lake and has been scaring all the other wild water Pokemon to the outskirts of the lake, blasting the nearby buildings and berry trees with torrents of water, and lashing out at anybody who tries to approach. Several fishing boats that have gotten too close have been smashed, but a few are left tied to the docks around the lake for braver trainers to use.

Large canopies have been set up over the berry gardens dotting the rest of the lakeside to keep the rain (and the occasional Gyarados hydro pump) from washing off the berries. The trees are tended to by gardeners with their grass Pokemon, and at times Minato with his Yamask covering his face, one black arm wrapped around his neck and the other lazily waving an arm to part the cloud of several hundred Combee buzzing protectively around the boy, trying to keep unfamiliar people away from the beehives as Minato makes his rounds checking up on each of the hives and picking up the fruit that has fallen or has ripened enough on the branches, offering berries to any person or Pokemon who's hungry.

Most of the buildings around town are doing well enough, despite the unending gloomy weather and too many people. The Daycare Center is particularly packed with Pokemon whose trainers are stuck outside of the island and unable to pick them up, and volunteers to help feed and care for the Pokemon are needed more than ever, especially the younger Pokemon who are fussy and upset at being away from their trainers for so long. Even the older Pokemon are a bit worried, and some of the daycare workers whisper about rumors of a pack of wild Drifloon seen around town whenever the rain calms down to a drizzle and luring little kids into the thick fog and getting them lost. There are also whispers about the hospital, hushed words about how it's haunted by the spirits of the deceased and that when a group of Murkrows gather around a patient's window, it's to mark that person with misfortune and death. Several posters of missing children are hung up around the Daycare Center, with the promise of a reward for any information or return of the children, and flyers begging for help to calm the residents at the hospital of their worries about the Murkrows or ghostly sightings.

The Game Corner arcade never knows silence with the constant flashing and chiming of the slot machines and roulette wheels, but don't be fooled with the frequent payouts seen at the machines Nanami and her Mimikyu sit at, because the odds are actually pretty low and the tokens can only be traded in for berries, common items, and Pokemon accessories. There are no windows in the Game Corner, and it is very easy to lose track of time inside— one elderly gentleman in a tophat can be seen at the same slot machine in the corner at all hours of the day, never eating or sleeping or doing anything else but mechanically pulling the lever, unresponsive to the rest of the world around him. He's going to hit the jackpot, he knows it. Just one more pull. One more pull...

The newest building in Toran is the boba shop, freshly painted in bright yellows and blues just before the storm hit and the colors remain bold against the grey sky. The "Grand Opening" sign still hangs above the front door despite opening over a month before, inviting customers inside to try their specialty: milk tea with Combee honey boba balls. Boba is half off for first-time customers, and you also get your stamp card stamped with a lavender Bulbasaur face, unique to Toran's shop. There are eight stamps total to be collected- fill up your stamp card for a special prize! But strangely enough, scattered throughout the town, people of various different ages slump against walls and on the ground, barely responsive and with empty cups of boba around them. They're ignored by the townspeople and despite the unnerving sight of these semi-vegetative citizens, lines to the shop are just as long as ever.

The shop is also currently hiring, for those who would like to fill up their days while there's nowhere to go and make a little $$$. How about it? Join Team Boba today! (:

→ 09/02 The First Meeting

"Hahahahaha" - Ichi

After giving people some time to get settled, later in the evening of the second day, Nanami, Minato, and their Pokemon go around finding people with those mysterious bands marking them as isekai'd strangers to the island, and herd them towards the boba shop to Talk. About why they're all here, about that dream, about where to go from here...

As the group waits for the last of them to arrive, with a round of boba provided courtesy of Nanami and her small Game Corner fortune, chatter around the boba shop paints the same story: a storm has been raging for over a month now, with thunder and lightning, hurricane winds, and whirlpools making travel to and from the island too hazardous, trapping visitors on the island way past their expected length of stay. There are talks of strong Pokemon trainers having headed out into the storm to try and get help from other towns, most of them quickly forced to turn back, and others— whether they were lost at sea or managed to break through— never heard from since. Storms are never this bad here, the people say, they never last this long and they don't ever seem to be... sentient... getting a lot worse earlier yesterday when so many new people were found collapsed around the island and were brought to the hospital, intermittently throughout the past month whenever a trainer tries to leave the island, and the largest reaction from the storm over a month ago when a girl with pink hair and a boy with blue hair were found in the lake and dragged half-dead to the hospital.

The island has been isolated for well over a month now with nobody having any idea what's going on outside, but the arrival of so many people at once can't be a coincidence- it must signify the time for change. When something to this scale happens, people tend to look to the gods, the Legendary Pokemon, but if they're really the cause... it'll take effort from everybody in order to break through the storm to catch the attention of the Legendaries and reach the rest of the world.

→ MOD NOTES

⬥ Welcome to Pokespe! All characters wake up at the hospital by the lakeside and can explore the rest of the island. Players are free to play out Pokemon battles or wild Pokemon encounters, but please let a mod know when catching a new Pokemon so we can approve or decline the capture.
⬥ On the second day, Nanami and Minato will be available to answer questions about what they've found out in the month before everybody else arrived. They will each have an NPC toplevel for those who wish to speak with them, and characters present at the meeting are free to learn about the information shared without needing to thread with an NPC.
⬥To proceed to the next area for next month's log, characters must find a way to travel across the stormy ocean filled with whirlpools and choppy waves. Make sure to mention your efforts on the permanent AC page at the end of the month!
⬥ There are several other oddities and problems around town that characters may choose to help with or investigate, which may or may not help with escaping the island or have ties to the plot as a whole. To investigate one of these areas, please comment to the questions toplevel with a link to your thread so the mods can direct you appropriately.

Comments

[thaumewturge]

[Why is it that she can get yoinked a different plane of existence twice?? In the space of a single year?? And this one doesn't even have the courtesy to look even vaguely similar to Eorzea. And it's wet, and she can't seem to cast a spell to dry herself off. Lovely.

Left with little else to do, Rhel tugs her jacket off and ties it to her rod to make an impromptu umbrella, tucks her minion back in the bag, and heads out.]

Cat + Water = Bad Time

[Mistakes were made! It is way too wet, even with an impromptu umbrella like Rhel has. Her tail lashes as she dodges between shelter, occasionally muttering very colorful swears under her breath because fuck this wetness. She's so annoyed by the rain and the muck and the wetness that she doesn't see someone right in front of her and runs into them.]

Ow! Ah, swiv--sorry, sorry, are you alright?

[Please don't be a child who nearly heard her swear.]

Berries and Litwicks

[At some point in Rhel's roamings, she spotted an odd blue flame and just had to follow it. Now she is in the middle of the berry trees, rod-brella on the ground as she tries to coax a very sad, very flammable Litwick into her arms. Maybe you spot the flames and come over to help?

Or maybe Rhel spots you later, the Litwick in her arms and looking a bit frazzled. And singed.]

'Scuse me, sorry, is this little one yours? Led me on a chase, nearly set a few trees on fire despite everything being sopping, and I'm hoping to find whoever lost her.

Daycare

[Eventually, Rhel makes her way over the daycare, since once a teacher always a teacher and...well, she wasn't expecting it to be a daycare for the little beastkin/voidkin/whatever-kin roaming the island, but you know what? She can work with this. Can't be any worse than the neophytes at the guild.

Rhel wastes no time in throwing herself into helping at the Daycare, though she keeps glancing at that list of missing children, concerned. When she has a moment...]

Wildcard!

[Wanna do something different? Hit me up with a PM or add me on plurk!]

berries & litwicks. i am so ready for their cr.

[robincould]

No, that's not mine.

[ he says it immediately, because he personally doesn't want to deal with a pokemon that would cause that much trouble. whoops! but he does give the litwick a look a look, and they look exhausted.

akechi's rowlet lets out a worried coo. she's far nicer than he is, at least. he looks up at rhel -- what a strange appearance -- and crosses his arms. ]

If no one claims it within a certain timeframe, you may as well call it yours.

\o/

[thaumewturge]

[The Litwick waves at the Rowlet, sniffling. Rhel just sort of sighs.]

It is looking like that will be the case. I've no idea how to care for a living candle, but...well, better I take care of her than leave her to burn everything down.

[Which was still impressive, given all the wet.]

...you were in the infirmary, weren't you?

[The shaggy hair is a bit familiar.]

[robincould]

Precisely. Better to leave a Pokemon like that under someone's watch than unsupervised.

[ at her question, he nods. ]

I was, yes. [ and he definitely remembers her being there. ] Your name is...?

[thaumewturge]

[Yeah, kinda hard to ignore the cat ears when she's the only one with 'em. She does a slight bow, trying not to disturb the Litwick.]

Rhel Fashonti, late of Eorzea, most recently of the First. And you would be...?

it's going to be a bad time all month

[compendiem]

[ Minato nearly gets bowled over, but he didn't survive almost a full year of dungeon crawling without some reflexes to ensure his survival, and while Rhel's appearance out of the literal sheet of rain surprises him, he puts on the breaks and manages to twist his body so that she barely glances off of him instead of knocking him straight off his feet, one hand to his side like he's gripping something out of habit, that he no longer owns and so he's left unclenching his fist and awkwardly relaxing out of that defensive stance. ]

I'm alright. Sure surprised me, though... Where're you going in such a hurry?

[thaumewturge]

[Rhel flicks her ears a little, trying to shake the water off.]

Somewhere dry, but if that isn't possible I will settle for somewhere less wet.

[compendiem]

[ Give this island another month and it's going to be fully submerged with nowhere dry, but they're not there yet. ]

Your best bet might be the Pokemon Center, if you manage to wade through the front doors. Most people are staying there, 'cause there isn't much room anywhere else...

[ Other places he can recommend are like... the game corner or one of the shops, but those aren't places people would spend more than an hour or so in before wanting to leave again, so he points her towards the Pokemon center next to where they'd all woken up in that literal clusterfuck. ]

[thaumewturge]

[Not yet. Key words there.]

Are you sure there'll be much room in this Center?

daycare

[cheesees]

[ Approaching strangers is something Nagisa is slowly getting used to, but it still takes a little courage to do so. However, Rhel seems to be nice, so it's a bit easier than usual.

Eventually, she approaches with a concerned expression and asks softly: ]

Umm...did you hear the rumors? About the missing children and the Drifloons.

[thaumewturge]

[Oh no, please tell her this girl is a local and not someone else who got yoinked here.

Rhel smiles a little, and nods.]

I did. Apparently Drifloons are said to lead children astray, so many of their parents are worried.

[cheesees]

[ Life is never that easy, unfortunately. Nagisa seems a little anxious, yet she looks like she does have an idea. ]

I'm a kid. So maybe I could try tricking a Drifloon somehow...

[ Although it's reckless, it's her best idea so far. ]

[thaumewturge]

[Rhel's ears go back.]

Are you sure? There's no telling what will happen, if it works.

cat + water

[partymagician]

[ Under most circumstances, Fai would be able to dodge out of the way, but he's distracted too, lost in thought over his lack of magic to the point that he runs right into her as well.

He waves his hands at her, smiling. ]

I'm fine! Don't worry about me! Are you okay?

[thaumewturge]

[Rhel's glasses go flying, skittering to a stop not far from her feet.]

Oh, hells--, yes, yes, I'm fine! Wet [And half-blind now] but fine! I didn't hurt you, did I?

[Excuse her as she crouches down to try and find her frames. This is hard when you're farsighted and everything's a blur.]

[partymagician]

Not at all!

[ He bends down to pick up her glasses, holding them out right in front of her. ]

Here.

[thaumewturge]

Oh, thank you.

[And back on they go! Don't ask how they're staying on her face with the cat ears. It's magic.]

Sorry, again. I am simply not a fan of so much rain.

Daycare

[lienhearts]

Unfortunate, isn't it?

[He's dressed like one of the locals, no band visible - but his clothes also cover every part of his body, including gloves for his hands.]

[thaumewturge]

[Rhel starts, but doesn't yelp at least. She glances at the boy who spoke.]

It is. I want to help.

[lienhearts]

[raising his own hands in mild alarm.]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you! I've just been thinking of helping out, if I could.

[His voice is so timid.]

[thaumewturge]

No, no, you're fine. I just didn't hear you, that's all. How're you thinking of helping out?

berries + litwick.

[afterword]

[ Dokja was curious at the sight of a blue flame, but he finds someone else already tending to said flame-- Oh? It's a Pokemon? He lifts his head when Rhel addresses him, shaking his head carefully as to not startle the newly caught Rookidee that's perched on his shoulder.

There's also an Eevee at his heels, poking his head out and chirping a greeting at the Litwick. Hello, candle friend! ] Is it not yours?

Siwoo-- Ah, my Eevee here [ Siwoo wags his tail in response. ] I actually woke up with so chances are she may belong to you. [ To think object looking Pokemon exist too...? A candle Pokemon. ]

[thaumewturge]

[Oh no, what a cutie! Rhel is momentarily distracted by the adorable fox thing before glancing back up at his...owner? Is that what that makes this man?]

I don't see how. I just found her in the berry fields, I didn't wake up with her or anything.

[afterword]

I see, hmm.. [ He looks to be in thought. The Eevee at his side just wagging happily away, likely a little faster whenever Rhel looks to him. ]

Well, assuming she doesn't have anyone.. you can consider taking her in. Otherwise, I don't know if there's a lost and found with Pokemon.. maybe at the shop?

[thaumewturge]

[At that, the Litwick cries out and grabs at Rhel's hands, making it very clear what her answer to that is.]

...not sure she'll let me, honestly.