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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oof, sorry -

[Sagi is no stranger to bumping into strangers by accident. It makes a certain amount of sense that he's doing more bumping today than usual, if he accepts that people around here just don't seem to have wings and aren't expecting to have to manoeuvre around them. He apologises quickly to the girl standing in the middle of the path to the lakeside, and under any other circumstances would just get on with his bizarre, waterlogged life.

But then he freezes. He is not, obviously, cognisant of being a videogame character from 2006. He is distressingly familiar with the sound coming out of the girl's handheld machina. Sometimes he hears it in his dreams, still chowing down on his cards.

Wakka wakka wakka wakka...]

Oh.

[Oh.]

[ Nanami is pushed! But she manages to quickly regain her footing, especially with the help of her Mimikyu as he grabs hold of her arm and keeps her steady. Phew. She doesn't want to land in another puddle of mud so she's glad for the save. She was going to turn around to see who knocked her over, maybe say something (most likely not), but she's immediately blown away by the wings. ]

You have wings! Are you an angel-type? Or from the Taguz tribe?

[ The wakka wakka wakka will continue until it eventually makes that deflating dying sound since she's not paying attention to the game. ]

Well, it's the first time today I heard that specific one...

[He can vaguely comprehend why, but people around here are so weird about the wings. Anyway, the wakka wakka wakka has ceased, but Sagi's morale has not improved. He gestures at the game.] Look, never mind that. Can I just see the screen on that machina for a second?

[You know, the thing. That she's holding.]

[ Oh, he refers to things as machina. Perhaps he's from the Last Fantasy 10 world. Well, regardless, she holds out her handheld out to him. It is back on the main menu, occasionally changing to show demo footage of the game. ]

Do you want to play it?

[His clothes are outlandish enough to be from Last Fantasy 10, but all the mud on them makes it a little hard to appreciate...]

Play it? How? [Realising quickly that he doesn't actually care right now, he shakes his head.] Wait, no, I mean - it's fine, I just wanted to see.

[And now he can see just fine. The picture is hard for him to parse as anything in particular, blocky and oversaturated with colours. The sound, however...]

Why does it sound like... that?

[ She tilts her head. ]

Sound like what...?

[ Like what? There are many sound effects in this game. There's the wakka wakka and the deflating and then the munch and screeeee and lots of other things. ]

The thing on the screen...

[This line of inquiry doesn't seem to be going anywhere.]

Forget it, it's nothing. You can have it back. [Please take it back. He doesn't want it. There's a Pac-Man in it.] It just reminded me of something. You said it's just some kind of toy, yeah?

[ She takes the handheld back and holds it. She doesn't put it away just yet so that wakka wakka wakka sound continues... ]

Mm, it's a video game. Do you have those in your world?

[His expression is blank, and not entirely because of Pac-Man flashbacks. He'd recognise the technology, but "video" is a word he's heard maybe once or twice in his life. Unlike the wakka wakka wakka wakka wakka.]

Uh, maybe? I wouldn't know. Probably not any more.

[Probably in little burnt pieces at the bottom of the sky, like all the fanciest, tiniest technology he's ever seen. He killed the video games in his universe, he's not sorry.]

[ Not anymore? Hm, maybe he really is from Last Fantasy 10. ]

Did something happen in your world?

That makes it sound so dramatic. There's just not many places where they make machina that small.

[It's definitely less interesting than the machine itself. A recording that you can play with somehow... He'd really like to know how, if only it wasn't still wakka wakka-ing.]

I thought it looks neat, that's all. But you probably have places to be, right? Sorry to eat you -

[FUCK]

Keep. Keep you. ...I'll just go.

[He'll just go. Casually walk away. Die in a ditch. Have his corpse eaten by Pac-Man in the afterlife. Bye.]

[ Nanami will let Sagi walk off to his death. There is no reason for her to stop him. ]

[ ... ]

[ So, what's he going to do later? ]

[After perishing? Forget about Pac-Man and go about his day, that's what he's going to do. It's easy once he doesn't have to hear the sound.

Hours pass. The sun sets. As a sliver of moon peeks out from the rainclouds, Sagi is traipsing through the berry gardens on the way to the Pokemon Centre, Pawniard following close behind. It's hardly late at night yet, but if he has to sleep on the floor in there, he'd like to claim a corner spot that he can rate at least 6 out of 10.

The base of the big tree over there has to be no better than a 2 now that the night's chill is beginning to set in. The grass looks clammy, and a puddle has formed in the mud. That's why he's surprised to see anybody still out here at all, let alone... half crumpled? Unresponsive??

...Upon approaching, he not only recognises her as the Pac-Man girl, but hears a snore and breathes a loud sigh of relief. That said, he should probably wake her up, if only so she and the Pokemon with her can sleep somewhere more comfortable.

Let's see. What happens if he taps her on the shoulder?]

[ Nanami hasn't slept for the past twenty or so hours as a result of the Game Corner and her own video games. She's pretty knocked out there and so is her Mimikyu because he also suffers the same unhealthy habits. Therefore, when Sagi taps her on the shoulder, she's not going to react because she's in a deep sleep. ]

[ You're going to have to try harder than that, buddy. ]

[As a chronically heavy sleeper, Sagi finds this extremely valid. But also annoying, because now he has to think of some more forceful way to wake her up without too much, well, force. He may or may not have murdered Souji not far from here only hours ago, and is not keen to repeat the experience.

He taps her on the shoulder again, just to be sure.] Hello?

[But he's barely paying attention, since that would distract him from racking his brain. Okay, so. His go-to for waking someone up fast would normally be dumping cold water on them, but that seems counterproductive to getting Pac-Man Girl out of the rain. Anyway, the puddle next to her is so muddy she might choke on it.

Maybe the metal plating on the back of his gloves is cold enough to substitute? If she still didn't respond to the shoulder taps, he'll turn his hand around and press the back of it directly to her face.] Uh, hello!

[ I first read Sagi slapping Nanami in the face with the metal plating on the back of his gloves and went jfc skarme is trying to kill all of my characters but luckily... I was wrong. Instead, that is just enough to wake Nanami up and she pulls back her head a bit. ]

Mm... that was cold.

[ She rubs at her eyes and yawns. ]

[I will get them all someday. Sagi, however, is just relieved it didn't take drastic measures to rouse her. He withdraws his hand very quickly.]

Hey, it's gotten dark out. Are you two okay? I thought you might not want to nap out here overnight...

[Like, personally, he's slept in worse places, but it's close. If nothing else, that big old lake monster could wake up again at any hour.]

[ Nanami continues to rub at one of her eyes, trying to get the sleepiness out, but she's not very successful. Her Mimikyu, Kyu-chan, has been stirred awake, but he opts to just go back to sleep. He gets the luxury of relaxing in her arms where it's safe and warm. ]

Oh... did I fall asleep outside again?

[ She didn't even realize that she was napping out here. Hmm, actually, where is here? It's a little dark. ]

Yeah, looks like "again". Don't feel bad, I did it all the time when I was little.

[Not that she seems like the self-conscious type. She can't be if she has no qualms about Pac-Man.]

Actually, I was heading back to town to turn in for the night. Wanna come along? Safety in numbers. ...There was some other stuff I was wondering, too.

[Subtle.]

[ There's another yawn and a nod. She should go definitely head back into town. Sleeping at the inn sounds nice... ]

What were you wondering about...?

[ She'll slowly get up, taking her time and moving like an eighty-year-old grandma. ]

[He waits politely. He's good at waiting. What he's less good at is articulating what he's thinking in general, let alone to someone roughly his own age. Even a scrap of advice would be good, though, and she has come across as genuinely helpful in these chaotic first few days.]

You've been here a while now, right? Was it... hard to get used to, for you?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

SEPTEMBER INTRO LOG

premise ⬥ taken ⬥ faq ⬥ navigation

→ 09/01 The Arrival

→ 09/01 The Surroundings

→ 09/02 The First Meeting

→ MOD NOTES

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