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!
(We will figure out how Neo got out of Batin's sight later. Batin worst babysitter. Also, worst kidnapper.)
She wandered the castle's hallways. She was lost, although she hadn't started lost. Even if she'd bothered keeping a map, the way behind her shifted and changed. The path ahead contorted, and the paths beside melted without warning.
Neo didn't know why she bothered moving forward--if moving in any direction counted as going forward. She could be heading backward for all she knew. (Backward to where? She couldn't remember where she'd started.) If she was going anywhere, it was only where the land wanted to take her. If she wasn't, then what was the point?
the land shook and shifted, as if under the influence of a certain, greater force. something was afoot; empty as the castle was, something always lurked in the shadows -- all she had to do was look out of the corner of her eye. something would be there, waiting.
seeing, watching.
the creature let out a low hum of surprise as it studied the being wandering the corridors. things were changing. ever since she came, things weren't the same anymore.
There were shadows and figments of imagination always hovering at the edge of her vision. Neo didn't bother turning to look--she'd already tried. Whatever she saw flickered out of sight. She was also pretty certain that it was all in her mind. She couldn't know for sure though, and she couldn't say she wanted to know for sure.
It was a rare day where Neo didn't want to know more. Her curiosity was dead for now though, to be resurrected when she found a safer place--or at least a place that made sense. There were no rules here.
She didn't feel well. (What was her temperature? The land hadn't provided a thermometer, and she couldn't tell for herself.) There could be a clinic somewhere here, perhaps. An infirmary? Maybe just a first aid kit.
Neo passed a door, and she stopped to open it. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. Medicine, perhaps. Moomoo milk or a glass of lemonade, if that wasn't available. The Amberwell too, that'd be handy.
Salvation, a voice whispered. It wasn't her voice though, so she ignored it. vertigo
it held nothing but emptiness. in essence, the room was whitewashed and there was nothing but a table in the middle of it. and something -- someone was sitting upon that table. it had been waiting for quite some time.
it didn't matter. any door she chose would have eventually led her to it.
The shadows in her vision disappeared, as if they couldn't exist in the white room. At last, everything was clear. She wondered if the clarity was just another deception.
"This isn't the way out," she said.
She turned around to leave, and found herself facing the same room again. She wasn't even surprised. When she grudgingly took a step forward, she found herself standing closer, only a step or two away from the table.
She trembled a little, probably from the fever, but possibly from fear. She looked it in the eye, because there wasn't anywhere else to look but towards it even if she tried.
"Hello then." Her voice was steady, but the only thing she wanted to do was run. vertigo
it was at best a silhouette. if she saw an eye, it was one of her hallucinations. it had no real features etched upon its face; it most certainly had them, but it made good use of the haze in neo's mind to filter away its appearance from view.
"it's not because you may not be looking for it."
it lifted something off the table. its fingers deftly twirled a butterfly knife -- opening it, then shutting it. a rhythmic sound of clashing metal filled the room, until it stopped.
"however, i present to you an exit from this forlorn castle."
it smiled, even if the researcher couldn't see.
the blade sliced air, and a tear in the whiteness appeared. what was beyond the gash couldn't be seen; it may have been working its magic, or maybe what laid ahead was simply invisible to the untrained eye.
"that path takes you away from this place, but you'll remain in the land still. from there, you will see a door. go through that door, and you will see juno."
Did she want to enter a portal sliced through the air? Was that safe? Was anything here safe?
She didn't think going forward was any worse than going backward. For all she knew, both would lead to the same place.
Neo approached the gash. She examined it, fingers perilously close to it but not quite touching--not yet. There wasn't really any point to a closer look; she couldn't see anything. She could be walking into a death trap, but then she was already in a death trap.
She turned back to the figure. "Why help me? Batin couldn't teleport me out, why would the land let me leave now?"
"i am neither batin nor the land. consider me the third point in this metaphorical triangle of agents and eos."
it twirled its butterfly knife, and waited. its one and only job this time was to open a portal and offer neo a choice. what she chose to do didn't matter much to it.
"Batin thinks he's a third point too," she said. That was assuming Batin could be believed. "I don't think it'll end well for him."
She wished she had tools on her, scanners, scientific instruments, something to better observe the rift. (Neo had Batin's shirt and a truckload of hallucinations, that was about it.) There was only one rift that she knew of. How could someone rip a reality a new one whenever they wanted?
Neo pressed her fingertips to the portal, but there was nothing to press upon. Her hand passed straight through. She pulled her hand out and looked it. It looked fine.
There remained one problem: Neo didn't want to go to Juno. In fact, she wanted to avoid Juno at all costs--perhaps more than she wanted to leave the Castle Forlorn, although that was a close contest.
"batin himself may not be, but his relationships and the people he knows automatically push him to a general point that opposes you."
passing her hand through the portal did nothing. entering it completely was a different thing altogether, though. it was a sort of childproof measure it had thought up; scourge pokémon poking a curious head into its matters quite literally wouldn't have an adverse effect on the world, then.
"i don't know what you're seeking clarification upon, but -- it literally is a door. much like the one you entered in through. a door from another whitewashed room like this. it leads to juno."
"I just wish it went somewhere else," she explained. It was an idle complaint though. Beggars can't be choosers, and no one in this land was more a beggar than she.
it didn't lie. at the other end of the portal was a room with a door -- sans the silhouette and the table and the butterfly knife. the portal hadn't zipped itself shut, either; neo could pass through it and head back to it if she wished to do so.
what greeted her was another whitewashed room. the door closed itself behind neo, but she could still return. it wasn't one of those things out to trap and snare whoever passed it by. it continued to sit in the first room, toying with its butterfly knife.
the third room held a desk, in similar vein to the first. there was a lack of silhouettes, though, and it only held a child playing with a toy truck under the table. the child's eyes gleamed a sort of something behind them; nothing evil, nothing neo hadn't seen before.
"oh, it's a person," said the child, "how did you find me?"
This wasn't Juno. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. She tested the door, knowing that she hadn't heard it lock. She left it open.
Neo heard the child before she saw it. After circling around the desk, she knelt beside it to talk to the child under the table.
"Hello," she replied. Neo wasn't entirely sure how to talk to children. She hadn't talked to children in a while. "I just walked through the door, and you were here. You don't get people visiting here very often?" vertigo
(We will figure out how Neo got out of Batin's sight later. Batin worst babysitter. Also, worst kidnapper.)
