This world is inhabited by creatures that we call pokemon. People and pokemon live together by supporting each other, but now the scourge threatens the safety of the entire region. Kohaku has become a dangerous place, where children stay at home and only brave souls go adventuring.
Welcome to KOHAKU. Come for the nightmares. Stay for the tea and crumpets.
The season is SUMMER. It is easy for survivors to forage for food from the land, as there are entire abandoned farms ready for harvest. On the downside, you can smell the corpses.
swarms
GRAND OPENING !
Welcome to KOHAKU REGION's grand opening! If you're interested in joining, come check out our grand opening giveaway!
<That's typist. Nidokings can learn fire blast and raichus can learn ice beam. Be open-minded,> the tauros chided gently. Then, because he knew it was kinda strange, he explained, <I stumbled across a machine when I was a hatchling. It taught me surf. I've never been able to surf across waters though, just the attack with a wave of water.>
The tauros shook his head. <He's not being mean. He's simply asking questions that I am happy to answer. How is the search for a surfing board going?>
“Not as weird as you learning surf,” Tiffany pointed out. Compared to the thought of Mo surfing, a surfing Tauros made a lot more sense. Her shoulders sunk as she stopped going through the pile. “There’s quite a few logs. Round logs. And I have no idea what this is.” She held up the porthole frame. “So far nothing is flat enough…”
Mo hovered down and looked at the logs and broken mast, humming as he thought.
“… maybe if we cut the longs in half or something…”
<Why don’t we just make a raft?>
Tiffany stared at her Pokemon and her eyes widened. Of course! A raft would be big enough to hold a Tauros. She turned to the wannabe surfer. “A raftboard! That could work!”
The tauros thought that the rotom would make a great surfer if it had feet--meaning if it had feet or some other part of the body to otherwise skim across the water upon. At some point, if you naturally float in the air, you cheat at surfing.
Tauros deflated visibly, hopes shattered, as Tiffany turned up nothing that resembled a surfboard. Then he perked up again. What was that sound he heard? It is hope?
<What's a raft?> Give the tauros a break, he's no expert on nautical artifices. <Can we make one now?>
Tiffany didn’t answer at first. She was trying to think how to explain it. “It’s, like… like a…” A boat? No, that didn’t sound right. Boats were way too big and had walls and engines.
<If we tie all the logs together, they will make a floating platform for you to stand on—>
“Yeah, that’s right! It will be like a surfboard, only bigger and more floaty—”
<But!> Mo raised his voice to cut Tiffany off, like she had him. <There’s a problem. We need something strong enough to tie the logs together.>
Tiffany looked back at the wood collection. She had no idea what would be strong enough to tie the logs together, let alone where to find something like that. She didn’t even have dental floss with her. Mo, on the other hand, was a bit more proactive and asked the Tauros, <Do you know where we can find something strong like rope?>
A floating platform? That made sense. He could buoy the platform with his surf, and that would propel him forward over water. A simple solution!
...There was a practical issue though.
<But... would I have to carry this rafting board with me for the rest of my life?> The idea of lugging around a lot of logs on his back whenever he went anywhere sounded abysmal. Then again, he supposed that he could be a scraggy constantly struggling with fleshy pants. <I suppose I would be okay with that, if that is the price.>
He thought about rope. He knew what rope was, at least. The tauros gestured to the south. <There are supplies for sailors a bit along the coast. Sailors use rope, I believe?>
Oh. Oops. Tiffany had forgotten about that. “I… guess you would?” was the only answer she could offer. She was sure that the Tauros could handle carrying a raft around, but could see how it would be annoying.
He seemed to accept the idea though. And he had an idea where to find some rope. Mo looked to Tiffany for an answer, and she confirmed that sailors did indeed use rope. <Brill. Let’s go and look for it.>
“C’mon, Tauros.”
They started to walk down the beach, keeping their eyes peeled for… uh, sailor supplies? Realising that she wasn’t quite sure what they looked like, Tiffany asked the Tauros, “Are the supplies in a hut or something”
He looked on the upside: at least he didn't have to drag a boat around. He understood humans and other species had to do that. That sounded like far more of a hassle than carrying around a few logs!
They wandered the beach for a while, and the tauros enjoyed the walk. The sun was bright, the weather was good, and he actually knew where the rope would be.
<There's a pier that they tie boats to, and they keep rope and other knick knacks. Off in the distance, you can almost see it now.> Indeed, off into the distance, there was a rather humble beach pier, all wooden boardwalk (they could cannibalize the boardwalk for wood, the tauros realized, although that would be r00d) extending into the sea. Had there been boats in at the moment, he would've pointed those out, but without, it was a little difficult to spot the pier.
As they drew closer, piles of rope and barrels of who knows what were as plain as day resting atop the pier.
Mo nodded. He could kind of make out a shape in the distance. Tiffany had to walk another few metres before she could do the same, and when she did she couldn’t help announcing, “Oh! I see it now!” She quickened her pace, and so did Mo after her. It there was rope there, things would definitely be looking up.
When they reached the pier, she spotted the barrels first but hardly acknowledged them when she spotted some rope soon after. There was one length of rope piled neatly on top of a barrel, and probably more lengths nearby. Tiffany picked it up and turned back to the Pokemon. “How much do we need?”
<Hmm… Can’t you just take as much as you can carry? To be on the safe side.>
Tiffany frowned and weighed the length in her hands. She didn’t want to carry more than she needed to. “Maybe…” She could carry one over each shoulder – a fashion crime, yes, bubut not when there were hardly any people around the witness it. “How much do you want to carry, Tauros?”
...How much rope did they really need? Because that's how much he wanted to carry. He wanted to surf! No burden would be too heavy! The tauros still had no real idea how to build a raft, but if they were building a floating device for him--well, he was no little pignite, there'd need to be quite a bit of wood, and quite a bit to rope together. <I will carry as much as we need on my back. If I can't carry enough, we can fill up the barrels and roll them back to where the wood is.>
That being said, he could probably carry quite a bit of the rope. He was a beast of burden after all, although he was a wild one. They'd only need to roll barrels if they wanted to make the great grandfather of all fishing nets.
<Set the rope and whatever else atop my back,> he directed as he pawed the ground. He couldn't really pick up the rope with his hooves. <And let us return. We shall build a mighty rafting device!>
Those were fair points, and the Tauros had offered to carry the rope… but all of it? Tiffany hooped two lenths on her shoulders like she had originally planned, then set some more rope on the Tauros’ back. A quick scan of what else was on the pier, and Tiffany couldn’t see anything else they might need. It would be too complicated to include barrels in the design.
“Okay, I think that’s all,” Tiffany announced enthusiastically, as she looked over the pier a last time. Nope, there was definitely nothing else that they needed as far as she could see. “Let’s head back and get started on the mighty rafting device!”
(What? The Tauros had a cool way with words. It was a little addicting.)
Tiffany and Mo headed back, walking beside the Tauros. They were keeping an eye to make sure none of the rope fell off his back.
admin (just realised i have no idea how to build a raft. mind if i be vague about that part?)
<The rotom is correct. You have hands to build, and I have a back to carry. The weight of some coils of rope is no great challenge to me,> the tauros reassured the girl.
...After a length of walking, he was starting to feel the weight of the rope, which was less of a problem than the general coilyness of the rope shifting around on his back. That was just plain annoying. Still, the tauros was a mighty beast of burden! And a man! He shouldered onward with no complaint.
<Have you built a rafting device before?> the tauros asked. <Is it difficult? I don't believe I can be of much use in the process.>
dizzy (...my knowledge of raft-building stops at YA NEED SOME LOGS MAYBE, so yeah. vague is great lol.)
When the Tauros asked whether they had built a raft before, Mo looked over curiously at Tiffany. ”Umm… no?” She neither looked nor sounded confident. Instead it looked as if a pound of realisation had fallen on her head; the realisation that she didn’t actually know what she was doing.
She didn’t admit it though. “But it can’t be that hard – it looks so simple!” she said, with fake confidence. Mo only looked at her doubtfully and said nothing. It had never been hard to read her bluffs.
When they arrived back at the woodpile, it was Tiffany – the only being there with hands, fingers and opposable thumbs – who did most of the work. At first she had been completely stumped on how exactly the logs were supposed to be tied together, but after an hour or so of bouncing different ideas of the Pokemon and trying them out, the method was finally figured out. And once that was done, it turned out that making the raft had been quicker than trying to figure out how to make it.
“What do you think?” Tiffany asked the Tauros when it was finished, motioning towards the raft with her arms. It wasn’t exactly the neatest or most even looking raft, but at least the ropes weren’t untying themselves.
It looked like it could float. That much, the tauros could say. It also didn't look like it'd fall apart (in fact it looked pretty study), and that was al that mattered, right? Who said rafting devices were meant to be pretty? <I believe.. it will work.>
<I shall try it.> The tauros set the raft in place in the wet sand right at the edge of shore. Hesitantly, he stepped onto the raft, which didn't fall apart. So far so good!
He took a deep breath, not entirely sure how this was supposed to work, and used surf. A small wave--probably the most mild use of surf anyone had ever seen--buoyed him into the ocean. He was still afloat. The raft held him up, over the water. Suddenly bold, the tauros called up a bigger wave, and it propelled him across the water.
<I'm surfing!> the tauros cried excitedly. <Look at me, I'm surfing!>
The Tauros said he approved of it – no, believed. Tiffany watched with anticipation, and Mo with curiosity, as the Tauros stepped onto the raft. Thankfully, none of the wood snapped underneath him. That had been Tiff’s main worry; that the Tauros would be too heavy for the raft. But so far, the raft proved strong enough.
The small wave was very small and somewhat disappointing. Tiffany cringed a little, thinking that the raft idea had failed, but before that had set in, the Tauros had summoned up another surf – a proper one this time.
All she could think was Please don’t break, please don’t break. But it didn’t. The Tauros was surfing. And he sounded excited and, well, alive! He had reached his dream (and shown the typist non-believers – I’m looking at you Mo).
Tiffany cheered from the shoreline. “Whoo! You go gir—Tauros!”
Yeah! Mo also cheered, but it came out more awkwardly as he had never done it before and didn’t quite understand how it worked. You surf. Those. Waves.
The tauros cruised over the waters, skimming atop the waves and occasionally cutting between them. It took a good minute before he finally capsized, eaten by the surf. When he and his raft washed up to shore, he was beaming.
<I can surf! You did it! We built a mighty rafting device indeed, and it will buoy me across the ocean!> Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves here, Mr. Tauros. That might not be wise. <At least it will buoy me along these shores.>
The tauros bowed his head with a bit more showmanship than strictly necessary. He could've had a future in bullfighting, as he said. <I am forever in your debt, good lady, and to your rotom too. Should you ever need me, I will be here, enjoying the ocean.>