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!
She knew where she was the moment she opened her eyes. She didn't panic, she had been here before. This was a room of Castle Forlon, or so it looked. She went to open the door but it wouldn't budge. It shocked her when she tried to grab it, she recoiled.
Eifa groaned. "Wake up." She practically screamed at the boy, but also at herself.
qbl8Np6I < 50 scourge partners talk, they sound like morgan freeman.
< 50 suddenly all the candles in the room are lit, giving the room an eerie feeling.
< 50 chandelier falls down
< 50 eifa hovers on top of him to get close enough to whisper to him to wake the fuck up, because why not
In Garnet's dream, she was surrounded by fossil pokemon. An Omanyte, Armaldo and Bastiodon stood in front of her, staring her down with their beady black eyes as she scribbled down notes furiously, pen barely able to keep up with her thoughts.
Suddenly, the room shook - the Omanyte screeched, the Armaldo sharpened its claws to prepare for battle while the Bastiodon shambled to the front, apparently ready to act as a shield. A Tyrantrum stomped furiously into the room, parted its jaws, and spoke in the voice of a woman.
Wake up, wake up - Garnet stuck out her tongue and barely scribbled down the first letters before the museum exploded into flames.
Snapping open her eyes, she bolted up, blinking furiously before scrambling aside glass shards grazing her lab coat as she did so. "What's going on? Where am I? And who are you?" Garnet started at the woman who was at the door and the darkened surroundings, then pulled out a pad of paper to take some notes.
G5Vi0sjn < 30 the door opens < 50 wave of scourge on the other side > 50 food appears > 50 the floor disappears underneath them
Aw, she felt bad. How could she mistake this cute girl for a boy? Her brother may be missing some limbs, but she was probably losing her eyesight. "Eifa, and this," she pointed to Azar. "is Azar. You're in the Land of Nightmares, more or less scourge territory."
"I have no idea why we're here though." Her partner started to make noise, indicating that there was something on the other side of the door. Eifa could practically feel their presence. There were scourge on the other side, Eifa would be safe but the girl... she didn't have it in her did she? No, Eifa would be able to sense it. "Who are you, dollface?" She asked.
"Azar, gimme some light." She demanded, and soon he breathed bits of fire, lighting up the room just a bit.
Food suddenly appeared and as Eifa was about to sit down, the floor disappeared from beneath them and she screamed.
pGEU4Pqz > 70 they somehow float, and don't fall. < 50 they land perfectly fine, and the furniture falls with them. everything looks just like that room. < 10 eifa turns on her.
Garnet blinked, pausing in her notes. "Wait, what was that again? Say it slower for me, would you?" She then turned back to her notes, scribbling land of nightmares, followed by a couple of question marks. "Land of nightmares, never heard of that before. The scourge have a territory for themselves in the dreaming world, huh? Can't say I favor this decor much, but it's fascinating for study, hm..."
"Garnet, it's a pleasure." She grabbed the pen between her teeth and held out a hand for Eifa to shake. "But wow, this place is incredibly interesting. Do you know a lot about this place? Could I examine that pokemon of yours, maybe get a tour if you come here often? The museum will be all over this when I tell them about this, wow." She scribbled down something else about blondes and dollface, and was about to take a step forward when the ground just...disappeared, and gravity did the work after that.
The other woman screamed. "Don't panic, it's fine!" She yelled. "Just let me get down these notes and then I'll-" Scribble, scribble, scribbled down something more about decor and then pulled out a pokeball, throwing the sphere in the air. "Amethyst, help me out!" Her aerodactyl gave a screech and dove under her, then kept diving until it was side-by-side with Eifa. "Grab on!"
ltpWP0zy > 50 they crash land > 50 the food somehow survives < 30 scourge horde waiting down below < 10 land of nightmares affects garnet
She grabs on, Azar flies beneath her, helping her get onto the back of the fossil pokemon. Luckily, they land safely and the food! The food is still fine. "Thanks dollface I owe you one."
"And because of that, you can take a look at Azar." When they landed, she patted the bug-type's head, and whispered to him to be good. He was as big as she was now, it was crazy. "All yours dollface."
"I can't give you a tour, Garnet. I'd suggest we get you out of here though, this place is teaming with scourge. Even in your dreams they're not exactly... pleasant to the unaffected, you know?" She didn't exactly want her to die in this place, despite the fact that well, a nagging voice in the back of her head begged her to lead her to her death. Eifa was in charge here, not the virus. If Azar didn't attack her, Eifa could do it too.
She went over to the food. "I know a bit about it. I wouldn't tell anyone about it. Unless you want them to die in this land. I'm serious, sweetheart." She took a seat, picked up a spoon, and chowed down a bit.
FdR8UvaM < 10 garnet touches his mane, and azar warms up to her a bit. > 10 azar doesn't like her and flies a bit further away. > 80 eifa grabs her by the hand and drags her to food. > 90 eifa hits on her because she's pretty. > 50 they hear a scratching against a secret door. < 50 the scratching is scourge pokemon.
She grinned, recalling Amethyst into her pokeball. "Don't mention it!" Under normal circumstances, Garnet would've been happy to let a scourge and its master fall to their death. But since this was a dream, a place where life and death were irrelevant, she wasn't keen on letting any source of data slip out of her fingers, and Eifa was a pure stroke of luck.
It wasn't the first time she'd seen a scourge pokemon, but a live scourge pokemon, now that was a rare find. She leaned in, pen already scribbling on paper before the dual type shied away, moving like the very air she touched was a toxin. "So it doesn't seem like your pokemon likes others very much, huh? Personally, I would think this could be for a variety of reasons - it's could be because I'm not one of you guys, because I'm not its trainer, or it could be that it just doesn't prefer getting too close to strangers. What do you think? I mean, gathering data isn't exactly easy, I don't need to be too close, it's usually much harder to gain cooperation..."
Next to the 'land of nightmares' on her notebook, Garnet added 'high quantity of scourge pokemon', then closed it, stuffing the pad of paper into her lab coat. "Hey, I'm not exactly defenseless! Amethyst will protect me, and I've two other pokemon that I can count on when times get tough. You don't have to if you don't want to, I'm just saying." She shrugged, then sauntered over to the food and took a bite. Not because she was hungry, per say, but food in the land of nightmares had a chance to be different, and she took out her notebook after a moment, scribbling down her thoughts.
"Oh, no, I'm not going to take them here, no way! It's for the sake of science, if anything else, the museum's always looking for new stuff to boost its popularity." Garnet paused, frowning at the thought. "Not that it'd be a problem if the government actually funded us enough, we've just never had enough money before."
2bPH8HgK > 50 wine appears < 50 garnet moves one seat closer to eifa < 30 scourge crash the party
Azar retreated to Eifa's side. She didn't complain about the stranger's company, this is the first time in a long time that she wasn't in the presence of someone normal who she wasn't... trying to kill. "It could be all three. Azar doesn't get out much." Azar was her only friend out here, and maybe she didn't let him get out much.. "I'll give you some answers about him, if you have questions. His favorite color is red, and his favorite type of puffin is spicy." And Pokemon, but she decided to let that one slip. Besides, he didn't have to eat his fellow Pokemon, it was just... the food chain.
"There's a whole army in this castle, dollface. I don't mean to insult your ability, four pokemon including Azar isn't much to get you out." She didn't understand why she was helping this woman, maybe Eifa could never turn down a damsel and she just wanted to be a knight so bad, maybe she hoped this would clear her of her sins. Whatever the case was, her inner conflict didn't stop her from eating. She was starved.
"I liked the museum as a kid." She said offhandedly, in between bites. She poured herself some of that magical appearing wine.
Just then the scourge broke through the... the wall? Shit. She tipped her head back and chugged down the rest of her class. There was no use in letting perfectly could wine go to waste. She whistled to grab their attention. lX_eYVOe > 40, they're distracted, giving garnet some time to run through the hole they made. < 40 Azar lights those bastards on fire. < 60 Eifa grabs Garnet's hand and leads her out.
Garnet pouted at this woman, the one that called her dollface and gave warnings that didn't seem very intimidating at all. "But Eifa, it's for science! Think of all the data just waiting to be collected, much more than your partner's little tidbits and preferences. Ah, not to say that they aren't interesting! I've written them all down, you see. Scourge pokemon aren't as mindless as everybody thinks, this is valuable to the advancement of our studies." The wine forced her to pocket the notebook she'd been gesturing to. Science was one thing, but Garnet was always up for wine, and scourge wine was useful to her rapidly growing collection of data.
"Really? That's rare. Would've loved to show you around the place if you weren't part of the scourge. It's really too bad, there should be more people like you in the world." Scourge food wasn't all that different from normal food - perhaps a little salty for her own liking, but Garnet wasn't complaining.
The hum of background noise grew in volume, materializing into scratching that pounded at the walls and cracked them in a gaping hole of blackened cement. The other woman - Eifa - grabbed her hand and tugged while the red-orange hue of flames lit up the small room. "We can't just leave like that! I have to collect some data, scourge attack and travel patterns. Hey! Are you listening? We should fight them, we could've won back there." Still, she let herself be dragged along, only mildly irritated that she wasn't able to jot down notes along the way.
"Depends on the scourge, dollface. Some can be as mindless and thoughtless as a rock. Same goes for humans though." Just some scourge ran on instinct rather than anything else. Eifa wasn't going to lie when she said she liked how the other woman pouted her name.
"It's a shame we're on opposite sides, dollface." She said offhandedly. Garnet seemed like a person she'd like to be around, if only she was a Hades Agent. Ah, but the night was still young, no? Maybe she could be, or maybe she wouldn't. "Maybe I'll visit, leave Azar at Pax, if you don't chase me out sweetheart." It was a lie, it was probably never going to happen. She wouldn't go into Eos territory.
"You want some data? They attack hard and fast. No, we couldn't have taken them, have you seen how many there were? You're lucky they haven't torn you limb from limb." Eifa was safe though. Somehow though, she wanted to get Garnet out of here. They didn't seem to be followed, which was good. She took a way through a passage that just appeared.
M_wh9ZhF < 10, scourge are on the other side < 50 Eifa trips. > 50 They end up in the same room they started in.
She laughed, a high-strung thing that escaped her. "Good one! Good one." In her head, Garnet was taking notes without the use of her pen and paper, scribbling down things about hades agents who cracked jokes and said things that most humans should've taken into consideration. The museum staff would eat this stuff up when she went back to them, she knew, and when word got out, the city would too. Maybe then, they would get better funding. So much for people who were thoughtless as rocks.
"Are you kidding? No way would I chase you out. People like you are rare, appreciating the history of kohaku is crucial to gaining more knowledge about its current situation. Hey, were you some sort of researcher before the scourge happened?" Garnet tilted her head to one side, eying the secret passageway warily. This place was really strange. It was a shame she couldn't write everything down just yet. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, I'm just curious."
She hiccuped as they entered the room, muttering apologies to the other woman before wrenching her hand out of Eifa's grasp. "It doesn't look like we can escape them, see?" She laughed, one hand already grasping the pokeball in her lab coat while the other made a grandeur gesture toward the scourge. "Why don't we see what they're made of? There's a lot to learn from experience, wouldn't you say?"
She knew where she was the moment she opened her eyes. She didn't panic, she had been here before. This was a room of Castle Forlon, or so it looked. She went to open the door but it wouldn't budge. It shocked her when she tried to grab it, she recoiled. 
