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!
There had been no shrines like this in Nerio City, so Tiffany had no idea what to do. She guessed that she was supposed to pray for something or maybe ask for some luck – but asking for luck seemed a bit silly and she had no idea what she would pray for. Besides, she wasn’t even sure how to pray.
In the end, she just smiled at it and didn’t give the actual shrine a second thought. She was here to check out the ranger outpost, not the shrine. But… was this place really the outpost? It seemed cold, little and bare – the opposite to Tiffany’s impression of the outpost in Juturna Village.
There was no shame in asking, right? As soon as she spotted the old man, Tiffany walked right up to him and asked, “Excuse me, but I was wondering… is this really the ranger outpost?”
The "old man" raised his eye. "Eh, what? Is this really the ranger outpost? Of course it's a ranger outpost! Am I chopped liver?!" Once Elder Hieronymous got started, it was rare that he stopped until after he was fully satisfied with what he said. Unfortunately, for Tiffany, this required her to pay attention to the man for a little longer than she had probably intended on sticking around for.
The man was sitting on a wooden stool at the edge of the lake. Clutched in his hands was an old fishing pole that he was currently reeling in enthusiastically. However, for all the excitement in the task, it was revealed that the man had caught absolutely nothing.
"Eh, another one lost, oh! Dastard fishes taking all my bait! I'll have you, why I'll have you! And then I'll bring you back, then I'll skewer you for dinner, bring you back, eat you for dinner!" For a moment, it was almost as if he had even forgotten that Tiffany was even there. Instead, he returned to railing at the empty fishing pole, before finally deciding, "Ah, have your last supper then, and enjoy it."
The man glanced over his shoulder with a grumpy expression. "Well, I've not all day! Hurry up, hurry up, what on earth is on your mind? And yes, of course it's a ranger outpost, good day to you!"
Tiffany tried to smile, but the mention of chopped liver had confused her. “You’re a person, so I don’t think you’re chopped liver…” she answered, not realising the old man’s question was rhetorical. Honestly, she had never seen chopped liver and couldn’t 100% say for sure that the old man was not that. Maybe 95% at most.
As she was ignored, Tiffany thought more about the chopped liver and wondered if there was a secret meaning behind the two words. She had almost forgotten about the old man too as she tried to figure out firstly what secret second meaning the words chopped liver could possibly have, and then she wondered why would you pick – out of all the words in the world – chopped liver to have a secret meaning behind it rather than… oh I don’t know, Poffin berry? Old rod? Double Down burger?
The old man’s voice snapped her back out of her silly thoughts, and surprised her in doing so. Tiffany stared blankly at him for a second while the words processed what he had said a second too late, before saying, rather simply, “I wanted to check out the outpost. The one in Juturna was really nice and warm so…” She wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but she had a feeling that comparing this place to Juturna wouldn’t come out sounding well, so she tried to switch the topic. “I’m a ranger, see, and I thought I’d visit, but…”
Adding the ‘but’ at the end was probably a bad idea too.
Hieronymous frowned deeply at Tiffany's reply. Was she taking his comments seriously? This caused the man to become rather troubled. "Chopped liver, little girl, of course not real chopped liver. I've chopped at too many livers in my time, hah!" Context, of course, was extremely relevant to the retired surgeon's soliloquies. He took his fishing pole and drove it into the hole he'd dug out to pitch it into.
The elderly man rubbed his chin. Despite his age, the man spoke with a loud voice. He was not frail in any way, shape, or form, and he looked as if he could hoist Tiffany over his shoulder if he so chose. Instead, the man stood to his full height and decided to tower over Tiffany. "Hm, 'really nice and warm', was it?" he muttered. "Ah, Polymnia is the one stationed at the 'really nice and warm' outpost, yes hm. Very misleading, if you asked me. Very, very misleading. Not much that is 'really nice and warm' about being a ranger, hm hm."
Hieronymous was becoming red in the face, and though his voice rose, he truly did not mean much harm. He could get incredibly passionate about his work at times, and truth be told, he was proud to be a ranger. Only becoming a ranger was the fitting atonement for his past mistakes. "I will show you something that will be greater than your frilly Heart Sign if you have the heart to follow me into the pits of Di Manes. I presume you came prepared, yes? Well, hop to it and follow me."
And just like that, the ranger left his fishing pole and went wandering down a winding tunnel lined with tombs.
(mein gott I'm so sorry about how late this is ffff)
Tiffany was understandably quite relieved that the old man had indeed confirmed that he was not chopped liver. That was one less thing she had to wonder about – but as soon as one thing left another came in, and now Tiffany again found herself confused. What did the old man mean when he said that he had chopped too many livers in his time?
Not really eager to find out, Tiffany just nodded slightly to show that she was listening, but said nothing. And when he towered over her, she took a step back, wondering how silly she sounded to this man. She wanted to interrupt him and ask just what he meant by saying her favourite outpost so far was misleading, but it seemed to Tiffany that one does not simply interrupt Hieronymous. Besides, he answered the question as soon as she had thought of it.
The way his face turned red and the way his voice changed honestly made Tiffany wonder if he was about to have a heart attack, or fall down due to some other thing. But there was no heart attack – instead the old man said that he would show her something better than her Heart Sign, and since she already thought the Heart Sign was cool, Tiffany was a little excited to be shown something cooler.
Still, she followed carefully, half-expecting the old man to suddenly seize up with a heart attack (although, when she thought about it, she wasn’t sure wha a heart attack looked like aside from dramatic chest grabs). “Of course I’m prepared!” Tiffany lied, having no idea what she had to be prepared for. She then asked, “But what is it?” Tiffany was a little too excited about the idea of something other than a dull cave or a shrine. “Is it a Sign?”
"Little girl, of course it's a sign!" the ranger barked. On the other hand, Tiffany should have been quite used to the ex-surgeon's loud and booming voice. It echoed off the walls of Di Manes. The acoustics in the crypts were absolutely stellar, if not, plenty of creepy fodder for unsuspecting humans. Tiffany was in good hands though. Hieronymous knew these winding passages better than the back of his hands.
The elderly man gestured for Tiffany to hustle. "We don't have all day, ranger!" the man called as he led her to a door. Its windowpanes were dusty and the glass had darkened with age. "Stand back, young girl. I'll take care of this right away," he said to her as he began to throw his weight against the wooden door. It groaned and creaked with each and every blow until the door finally burst open. Dust was sent up in a flurry as the ranger coughed heartily in response. "No matter how many times I open that door, it locks itself!" he grumbled. "Why can't the damned door stay open just for a single day? I was just down here a few hours ago, pesky, pesky door."
He waved his hand at Tiffany. "Well? I don't have all day! Do you know where this is? No? Look around! Here we are at the heart of the caverns, in the very crypts of some of the greatest and wisest Pokémon to have ever lived!" He waved off to the left. "Here, the brave Pokémon who fell to the Scourge, and over there, the last generation's Champion's Pokémon! Oh, the battles he must have participated in, yes yes! Only through death can people and Pokémon become heroes, eh what!"
And then, something very odd came over Hieronymous. "Only through death can people and Pokémon become heroes," he repeated much softer this time. "Isn't that right, Tiffany? Hm, why is that, I wonder... I wonder. Yes, Tiffany, why is that?"
“Oh.” It was hardly a word – more of a squeak. Although Tiffany was very much used to loud voices, she wasn’t used to this kind of loud. Or the fact that old people could even be so loud in the first place. The echoing certainly enhanced the old man’s voice as well, giving it an extra kick which was really what Tiffany couldn’t get used to. “Cool!”
She had tried to sound as enthusiastic as she wanted to feel, but the caves already drained her of most of that. She hurried when told to, as much as she could while stepping carefully – despite her journey so far, she was too used to smooth surfaces – and when Tiffany was told to stand back, there was already such a distance between her and the old man that she didn’t have to move back at all.
Tiffany wasn’t all that used to old people and their kind of talkativeness, and only slightly nodded when the old man complained about the door. She had been about to reply with a ‘No’ when asked if she knew where they were, but the old man had beaten her too it. As well as being loud and talkative, he was a mind reader too…
So this was what it was like to have a grandparent – have them prattle on and on without anyone daring to interrupt you… that almost made up for the loss of ages and looks, Tiffany thought. Besides, the tour she was getting was kinda cool. Sorta. Tiffany had no idea who the last generation’s champion had been, and seeing the graves of Pokemon who had lost to the scourge was not only saddening, but sobering. It was scary to think that, if they weren’t careful, she could lose Mo to them.
The question didn’t puzzle her so much as the change in the old man’s voice. Tiffany frowned as she tried to think what a good answer would be. People and Pokemon only become heroes through death… through death… “Is it because… they were fighting a lot? Too much, maybe?” It was a bit off the mark, but it anything seemed better than silence.
Hieronymous blinked in Tiffany's direction, as if she'd given him the most ridiculous answer that a human being was capable of mustering up. Eye-twitch and all. He rubbed at his nose with a hand as his sentimentality seemed to disappear for a moment, replaced with his brash old self. "Fighting too much, hm," he muttered under his breath, hand moving to rub his chin and its majestic white beard. "Fighting is tangible, yes. Perhaps that is why they're made into heroes, eh?"
That was a good answer, yes, but not quite the answer that the Ranger was searching for. "You give your life to a cause, that's what!" the man bellows, letting out some hearty laughter. "And that's how you become a hero, girl. Give your life to a cause until the very end, yes, see it through to the very end. What is death to a hero immortalized by their peers? Nothing! Nothing, I say!"
It was questionable whether or not Hieronymous had forgotten why he had brought Tiffany down to the crypts in the first place. However, the man began to move deeper through the tunnels, until he arrived before a statue of a man and a Jolteon at his side. Hieronymous "hmm'd" to himself. "Yes, this shall do. Small enough to begin with. Small is always best to begin with, yes!" He glanced at Felizia, gesturing for her to give him some space. "Stay back a bit, young Ranger. I have something to show you."
The man released his styler, drawing a sign of the occult. As he completed the glyph, sparks began to fly from one of the sarcophaguses and scuffling could be heard from the inside. "Ranger girl, give me a hand," he said as he heaved at the heavy lid of the coffin.
The "old man" raised his eye. "Eh, what? Is this really the ranger outpost? Of course it's a ranger outpost! Am I chopped liver?!" Once Elder Hieronymous got started, it was rare that he stopped until after he was fully satisfied with what he said. Unfortunately, for Tiffany, this required her to pay attention to the man for a little longer than she had probably intended on sticking around for.
