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!
Irene opened her eyes to darkness. Dark walls, red seeping through the cracks in the windows and black furniture - wasn't exactly her ideal place to wake up, even when she was drunk and delirious. She resisted the urge to think about Bacchus, and how it was probably in a similar state, or worse.
She wanted to go back to sleep, thoroughly convinced that this was all a dream. Or perhaps it was a hallucination, something conjured up from the depths of her subconscious after one too many shots at the bar (she'd won more hands than usual, what was the harm in celebrating?), she wasn't really sure anymore. A couch sat to her right, its fabric torn and black like charcoal - Irene reached out to touch it, then pulled her hand back, torn between fascinated and repulsed.
mqXW8kby > 50 drunk irene < 50 sober irene 1-33 dining room 34-66 living room 67-99 bedroom 100 scourge show up
She remembered settling down for a nap at the lab; when Sabina awoke in a living room that seemed decorated out of a gothic Victorian slasher, she was only annoyed that her subconscious had rendered up such an unsettling place for her few moments of rest.
She turned about in the middle of the room, eyeing the dark, stained furniture critically, before her eyes fell on Irene.
"Interesting," she said. "I know you of course--gym leaders are always guaranteed some measure of celebrity, and you've earned more notoriety than note by virtue of running from Bacchus. Especially in contrast to Melchior that looked bad, very bad. Why would you appear in my dream though? I've never met you, and I can't say I care about you either way. Were you mentioned in the newspaper I was reading earlier? I'll have to check when I wake up."
Sabina reached out tentatively to Irene's mind. Perhaps rifling through the thoughts of her own dream construct would reveal something interesting.
O8QlYXnY < 50 scourge appear
[Sabina has surface level telepathy so any, if any, thoughts of Irene's you want her to be able to pick up should just be italicized.]
The first thing Irene thought was that Sabina was way too talkative for her to handle. On top of that, her hangover-headache was starting to kick in again, and the distinct lack of any alcohol content to make things 'better' was unsettling, irritating.
I wish I had something to drink. Her subconscious complained. "Bacchus is finished." Irene drawled on the outside. In her drunken stupor, apathy overtook her normal personality. She took the insults like she took losses at poker, shrugging her shoulders and hoping that things would blow off, reset with a fresh round of cards. "I have no desire to return to that wasteland." Some stuffing is bleeding out of the couch, and Irene picks at it with a fingernail. "Before this, I was at the casino in Nerio. Maybe you can answer your questions with this information?" She certainly wasn't going to. Irene was too busy searching for something to drink.
GiACaOtM < 50 Irene sobers up > 50 stays drunk < 50 Irene thinks about Sabina < 50 Irene thinks about the Scourge < 50 Irene thinks about how much she hates the decor
Sabina sighed and turned away. "You're just an illusory figure--I'm not trying to convey anything of note to my conscious self. I must stop reading the gossip columns before I go to sleep. It's obviously rotting something in my priorities system. I should have gone to the Dream World for more research, rather than just remained in a common dream. I wanted to be real."
She frowned at Irene and dismissed her with a wave of her hand, trying to dismiss what she thought was still a figment of her imagination.
Irene went nowhere.
"It's just like when you want to fly in dreams," Sabina pouted, suddenly sounding all of her seventeen years.
Irene shrugged her shoulders. "Think what you like." She sighed, rubbed at her temples to abate the headache that existed even in a dream. Strange, this sort of thing never happened in her normal dreams, and she might've picked up on it if her head wasn't swimming with thoughts of alcohol and ugly memories of Bacchus, no thanks to this woman.
She didn't recognize this woman, Irene realized. "Flying is impossible. Dreams like that are ridiculous means of escape for those that can't accept reality." When Irene was bitter like this, she usually turned to the shot glass she had in her hand, in a real casino. Now, she merely scowled and thought about why she was brought here, of all places, instead of a proper dream.
There was movement at the doorway. The door swung open to reveal a lone aron, tilting its head at them with a blackened gaze. Irene's headache didn't go away. If anything, it got worse at the memories brought on by this unrelenting dream.
Ugh. Disgusting creature.
< 50 aron transforms into something fearsome < 50 it brought friends
"Flying is impossible for you," Sabina snapped. "Not for me." There was nothing impossible for her, she believed. Anything could be broken down by math and science, made accessible and defeatable and usable. When the scourge aron appeared at the door, she focused on that rather than her drunken dream shade.
Sabina tried tentatively lifting the aron up with telekinesis, and floating it across the room towards the two of them. It was on the heavier end of her range, but she felt fairly confident it could be done.
0kmiAksX < 50 works
The aron wobbled at first, but his flight smoothed out as Sabina grew more confident in herself, and she walked around the floating scourge with ease, even daring to reach out a palm to place on his shining flank. She kept his head held straight in place with a slight exertion of effort as she examined his discolored hide.
< 50 his friends take offense
The cluster of aron gathered at the door watched the spectacle with fascination rather than disgust.
"I'd like to see you try it." Irene retorted. "Even if it's possible in dreams, it's impossible without some tool to assist us." Freeing Bacchus town wasn't impossible, either. It just lacked the proper tools, something Irene herself couldn't simply conjure out of thin air.
When Sabina first lifted up the aron, Irene merely turned her gaze to it lazily. When it came towards them, she moved out of range and let the other woman do the touching, she refused to get anywhere near that beast. "Do you find that thing interesting?" She drawled. There was nothing past it other than a relentless, killing monster.
KiztKFfT < 50 sobers up
Why doesn't Irene want to sober up. Her headache got worse as the second passed by. There would've been something decidedly elegant about the way the aron was being studied, had she not been in her pessimistic drunken state.
The couch that she had touched earlier stood in the corner of the room. Irene sat down on it and watched from afar, raising an eyebrow.
< 50 scourge aron attack > 50 + 3 to aron population
"I'm not talking about flying in dreams any longer," Sabina said. "I'm talking about the waking world. I've been capable of telekinetic flight since I was eleven. As for the aron, yes I do find him interesting. I'm a virologist. A live specimen of the most fascinating virus humanity has ever witnessed is a dream...a dream come true."
The aron at the door seemed to have lost their appetite for merely watching the two women, however. Even as Sabina spoke, they charged. She shrieked and tossed the aron she was holding aloft in the air at the oncoming pokemon stampede.
Irene raised an eyebrow. "Fascinating." She said, not sounding very fascinated at all. "I suppose you're part of EOS, then? Those researchers that try so hard to find a cure for this virus, or so they say." To call it a dream come true seemed over-exaggerating, to say the least. If she wanted to see scourge, all she had to do was visit bacchus sometime, after all.
I0iFRPvB < sobers up
The aron landed beside the others, rolling to a half stop near the door frame. After a moment, it got to its feet and shook the dust off its hide, mostly unharmed.
< 50 the others are distracted by it < 50 irene sends out her pokemon
If the group of aron noticed it, they gave no indication of it - if anything, their charge grew frenzied, gaining speed as they went. As they approached, getting closer and closer, Irene sighed and closed her eyes, rubbing at her temples. She had knowledge that the death was often the ultimate means of escape from dreams. Perhaps now was the time to embrace that fact.