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

[Fweeeet! Fwooooot! The noise of the flute might be piercing enough to wake the dead. Sagi, having poorly chosen this particular roadside canopy to nap under earlier, is merely dead to the world, so his waking is still a work in progress.

Slumped on a bench with his wings nearly invisible, he only stirs when the flute-squeaking culprit happens to come within a few yards of him. Even then, he valiantly refuses to fully open his eyes just yet.]

Can I get... three more minutes...?

[ At hearing another voice, the Snorunt starts blowing harder into the flute. She has an audience now!

Fai laughs. ]

It seems like she's decided it's time for you to get up!

[Fweeeeeeeet oh god make it stop, okay, he repents, he surrenders! The next strangled toot of the flute provokes Sagi into sitting bolt upright, eyes wide - if still a little glazed over.] I-I'm up! What is that noise??

Hmm? That's the sound of a free concert!

[ He plucks the flute from his Pokemon's hands, holding it up. She jumps up and down, trying and failing to get it back. ]

Chii here found this little flute somewhere.

[This brief reprieve from the hell squeaking doesn't quite stop the ringing in Sagi's ears, but it helps. He settles back down, rubbing his eyes.]

Is it supposed to sound like that...? Maybe they don't have the right, I dunno, mouth shape?

[He wouldn't say he knows anything about music, so maybe he's way off. He is, however, intimately acquainted with headaches.]

Hmmm... maybe not.

[ He turns it around in his hands. ]

I'm not too familiar with instruments, so I really couldn't tell you. If she hadn't be blowing on this all day, I'd try it out myself.

[ Chii is still trying desperately to get it back, and Fai lets out a small sigh. ]

I'll have to find somewhere to hide this, I think.

[Please. Please hide it. Please throw it off the edge of the island.

...is what Sagi might have thought if he thought about self-preservation more often. Instead, the sight of the little critter straining on tippy-toes to get the flute back makes him start to feel bad for her.]

Aww. I think it would be fine if she was quieter. ... A lot quieter.

Do you think that's something I could help her with?

[ Can you teach a Pokemon to play flute? ]

Hmm... maybe if I ask her nicely she'll play more quietly. Could you do that for me, Chii?

[ Fai crouches down so he's at eye level with her before handing the flute back. Immediately, Chii starts playing it again and it sounds just as bad, but it is quieter. ]

[Sagi nearly manages not to grit his teeth at all when the next tortured squeak hits him.] Yeah! L-Like that.

[It's still a truly awful noise, but if Chii is so willing to downgrade from tearing through his skull to merely rattling it, he can get behind encouraging her to keep going.]

They're pretty smart when you give them the chance, aren't they?

[ Fai looks up at Sagi and smiles. ]

They are. I'm a little surprised by it, actually.

[ Chii continues to blow out terrible notes. ]

I've never come across animals quite like these before.

Edited 2020-09-18 05:42 (UTC)

Me neither. They're more their own people than just pets.

[He can, for example, imagine these exact horrible squealing noises coming out of some little kid playing an ocarina, now that the volume isn't so overwhelming. He doesn't want to imagine it, but he suspects it'll happen whenever he next lies down.

Speaking of which, he has to stifle a yawn.]

Maybe she could learn to use it in a fight...

[That's the remaining dregs of sleep in his mind talking, honest. Mostly.]

[ It may come from his sleep-addled brain, but Fai nods seriously at the idea. ]

That's a great idea! It would serve as a good distraction to expose a weak spot on her opponents. What do you think, Chii?

[ She blows a particularly loud note in response to the idea. ]

[Oh god, his head. This time the unexpected volume spike startles him back to his feet, up off the bench entirely. There's an audible bird-like flutter from his transparent wings as he catches his balance.]

Not on me! I don't want to fight you!

[ Fai just barely manages to suppress a laugh. If it weren't for the flutter of wings he can't see surprising him, he would've definitely laughed. ]

Be nice, Chii!

[ She puts the flute down. Fine, she'll play nice! ]

Sorry for startling you just now.

[Ugh, well, he's on his feet now... There's no point even attempting to go back to sleep. At least Fai isn't behaving like someone who woke him up on purpose. In fact, he assumes Fai's brief look of surprise was just because of him jumping up all of a sudden, so he's quick to look apologetic in turn.] No, likewise. I just didn't expect her to get that loud again... I'm sure she didn't mean to.

[...Although he can't do anything about it if she did.

Anyway, having successfully not fallen on his face, he'll just fold his wings again. The movement might make it easier to notice something

[ There's a louder fluttering sound now, and Fai can't deny that there's wings somewhere. Fai looks at Sagi for a moment, wondering if he has wings that he's hiding with illusion magic. He's tempted to ask Sagi directly if he has wings, but the kid has already been through enough with Chii's flute and Fai doesn't want to surprise him even more.

So he'll just go about it a different way, looking around instead. ]

Is there a bird Pokemon nearby? I hear the sound of wings.

[He looks nonplussed at the suggestion, but since Fai is looking around the area, Sagi's impulse response is to follow suit, glancing from side to side. Maybe it was one of those sneaky hospital Murkrow? Or maybe Chii's crimes against music antagonised something else nearby?

It takes him a moment to hear what Fai is actually saying and cotton on, at which point he stops.]

Oh. Yeah, no. Those are mine.

[Well, that was straightforward. They aren't any less see-through than they were a second ago, though.]

[ He looks a little to the side of Sagi to see if he can catch a glimpse of them. No luck.

Fai can't help but wonder what's going with them. Invisible wings isn't something he's come across before. ]

Ah, I see! Are they always invisible?

[Part of Sagi wonders if his mom ever felt this awkward when he or the other kids kept bugging her to show off her wings to them... No, probably not. He hopes he would have noticed.

He'll just get it over with this time. The air around him gleams for a second and then, quite suddenly, two broad teal and white bird wings take solid shape behind him. They still look a little ethereal around the edges, but they're too large to mistake: the plumes sticking out from near his shoulders almost brush the canopy overhead.]

They're just like this. Some people think we'll evolve past having wings someday, so maybe I'm behind the times now. It is what it is.

[...Actually, did something other than his wings rustle nearby? Distracted by trying to explain himself, he hasn't noticed yet.]

[ Fai's eyebrows raise when the wings materialize and it's the only indication of surprise he gives, a smile still on his face. He's never seen wings just appear like that. ]

Even if you do evolve past that, it's still part of you now. They're nice.

[ But there's a sound now, something that sounds a bit different than Sagi's wings. Fai furrows his brows. ]

Do you hear that?

Hear...?

[As if in answer, the noise comes again: rustle, rustle. Sagi doesn't miss it that time. Was there a wild Pokemon around here after all? If so, not all of them can be taken lightly... He tenses up somewhat, wings held low, and scans the area again.

Which means he's looking the wrong way when a wild Swablu swoops down out of seemingly nowhere, groggy anger in its beady little eyes, and goes straight for Chii's flute.]

[ It's a good thing Fai has quick reflexes, because he manages to pluck the flute out of Chii's hands right before the Swablu gets to it.

He holds it close, not too bothered by the angry bird as he smiles at it. Actually, it's pretty cute. ]

You have to ask nicely before you can have it! We don't allow any stealing here.

[It really is cute. Once he sees the source of the noise, Sagi can't help but smile at it a little, either.] I guess there's your bird.

[Now he feels slightly dumb for assuming Fai meant him. Oh well. It's hardly an unfamiliar feeling. He'll go ahead and hide his wings again while he's at it, as suddenly as he revealed them.

The Swablu, in contrast, doesn't seem to want to go back into hiding at all. Tumbling out of the air when it fails to steal the flute, it hops over to Fai's ankles and starts to serenade them with an incessant stream of whistles and chirps. Fweet fweet fweet! Fwoot fwoot! Tweep!]

...I can't tell whether it's mad or trying to do an impression.

Neither can I.

[ But he looks down at the Swablu and smiles. ]

You sound much better than this flute! You don't need it at all!

[Tweetle fweetle cheep! This does not seem to be the answer the Swablu wants. It ruffles its cottony feathers and tries to jump at the flute from below instead.

The longer it carries on, the more Sagi feels vaguely sorry for it.] It can't hurt to let it try, right?

premise ⬥ taken ⬥ faq ⬥ navigation

→ 09/01 The Arrival

→ 09/01 The Surroundings

→ 09/02 The First Meeting

→ MOD NOTES

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