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!
Too bad, the land of nightmares is in serious need of redecorating. It needs this spiral escalator.
Isaac could totes learn a thing or two from this girl. They should meet. Somehow.
Tiffany returned the grin. Ikram was right – if she wasn’t being a good host, then neither was the other girl. So screw being a good host. They were going to be awesome hosts. Tiffany went along with the idea. “It’s near the kitchen--oh, I’ll go grab a stool!” She went at got it without a second thought.
That was, a second thought about the stool. Tiffany had to think twice about asking Ikram if she wanted something to drink. That wasn’t going to work. Location differences aside, the illusion might trick her into drinking mud. And who was to say what the stool was, if it was anything at all.
“Over here?” Tiffany asked, putting down the stool where she thought Ikram had pointed.
“This is pretty cool!” Already she was trying to figure out if she could orchestrate a sleepover. Could it work? Or would they be attacked in the night by vicious wild Pokemon?
i'll dial 1-800-SCOURGE to let the land of nightmares know we're gunna redecorate the place in a bit. they're getting new interior designers, heck yea.
yeah, writing ikram and isaac one after the other is a big difference. a really big difference.
ikram watched tiffany set the stool down. to her, it looked like a piece of rocky debris that she had plucked off from the ground and set down somewhere else. she glanced up at the sky. it had turned red.
she didn't know if she could continue to imagine the place she was sitting at as somewhere near a kitchen, where all the food was. still, she tried, and hoped that was what counted.
ikram sat down. "hey, your house is totally cooler than mine. there's something exciting about being in someone else's house -- it's like going over to someone's place for some partying to kickstart the night!" said the ranger, "maybe we could even get some awesome stuff going down here!"
wjT0sbM3 <50 oh yeah the shard is gunna give them awesome stuff
1-40 ikram goes to tiffany's illusion 41-60 woot they've gone clubbing 61-80 tiffany goes to ikram's illusion 81-100 pool party complete with crowd
there was a brief flash of light across ikram's eyes, and she soon found herself in tiffany's illusion -- she saw the same house that she did, and boy, was it finally great to see the same thing that her new friend was.
I’m gonna laugh if you get confused one day and mix up their personalities. Unlikely to happen, but still funny to imagine.
For a second, Tiffany wondered why Ikram was talking about her home, but then she remembered that they were playing pretend. “Only because you haven’t got the escalator upgrade yet. An escalator that goes all the way up to a penthouse sounds way more fun than this boring old place!” Imagine trying to walk all the way up the wrong way… Actually, that sounded more tiring than fun.
Tiffany nodded enthusiastically. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had said the word “partying” to her. Or even “party”. Or even “part”.
“Yeah, let’s have some fun!” Clearly the shard agreed, because the number seventeen is way lower than fifty. But Tiffany didn’t know that until Ikram said so. “Ohmigosh what? Really? How?” Tiffany pointed to the fridge and asked, “Okay, uh, what’s that?”
Before she had even finished asking, Tiffany was convinced. It was so much more fun this way! She clapped her hands together and tried to think what they could do – she hadn’t had anyone round in so long! The illusion said a few days, but the reality was much longer.
Her little flat was starting to seem more boring than she remembered.
“What should we do?” She asked Ikram, putting the metaphorical dice in her hands. “I mean, sorry, are you hungry or thirsty or anything?”
"your fridge?" ikram asked, tilting her head. it was pretty simple to answer. what mattered was that they both shared an illusion now, and everything was going to be awesome. "i don't know how it happened --" ikram stopped herself before she mentioned her other experience with the shard, "-- but it did! i'm in your house now, and no-one's gunna stop us from throwing an awesome party!"
the ranger glanced around the flat. it was well-furnished, to say the least. it was more of a home than her vision ever would have been. imagine staying in a place like that; how disastrous. sleeping wouldn't even come easy, what with the scourge and all.
"nope, i'm good. we should start figuring out what to do," said ikram, excitedly. she was getting into the whole party thing a little too quickly.
sensing their ecstatic mood, the shard started to react. it plied its psychedelic light and extended its force through it.
sDkqh8xv <50 absorbs life force
ikram staggered, feeling a sudden weakness in her knees. it wasn't anything too rough, though. she brushed it off.
dizzy (( i figured 47 <50 would be less detrimental than like a 17 <50 lol ))
Tiffany clapped her hands some more. She was excited. “Who cares how you did it – you did it!” And now, for the first time in forever, Tiffany had a friend over and they were going to have such an awesome time with this awesome party and it was going to be awesome and—
“Ooh! Right! What to do! Let’s…” And she paused. It had been so long that Tiffany had trouble remembering what actually happened at awesome parties of awesomeness. And she was older now too – did that mean she had to different stuff?
She was so consumed in her thoughts that she didn’t notice Ikram’s stagger at all.
“Oh, let’s put some music on!” Duh. Music was essential. That shouldn’t’ve been so hard to remember. Tiffany rushed over to the stereo, turned it on, and began to play with the buttons. Oddly enough – although not that odd if she thought about what illusions were – the stereo didn’t make a sound.
“Huh. Well that’s lame.” Oh well, she’d just have to think of something els— “Ooh, I know! Let’s…”
NfgnjGo8 1-33 play a game 34-66 build a fort in the lounge 67-99 makeovers 100 ZOMBIE MOVIE NIGHT
“… build a lounge fort~!” Because what was an awesome time without an awesome lounge fort.
tiffany's excitement was not mirrored as ikram felt her chest tighten. she instantly felt short of breath, as if someone was wringing life away from her. this wasn't right.
she collapsed onto the lounge, panting.
<20 breaks free from illusion
what she had seen as a lounge just moments ago had been torn away from her mind. ikram had her hand on a tree trunk to support herself, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she saw prismatic lights shining upon them. had they actually been walking? had they been moving all along and had no idea because they felt as if they were walking around a house?
"tiff," ikram managed to say, "tiff! something's wrong -- i can't breathe."
right. what did she learn the first time she was here? ikram racked her mind -- she remembered going into batin's world, then into that place -- now here --
"give me your hand," she said, her lungs tightening even more as the shard exerted its force over her. her styler whirred, readying its sign-drawing function.
“Ikram!” Tiffany hurried over to the girl without a clue what to do. Oh no, oh no, oh no. She knelt beside her. “What-what do you mean you can’t breathe?” Tiffany sounded scared. She was scared. People collapsing on the ground unable to breathe was not normal. None of this was.
What was that thing you were supposed to do when people couldn’t breathe? CPS or something? Hitting them on the chest, basically. That and the potentially awkward mouth-to-mouth thing.
At least Ikram knew what to do. She sounded like it anyway. Tiffany did as she was told and held onto Ikram’s hand. “What are you doing?” She heard the styler start but what sign could there possibly be to help someone breathe?
A post ago she had been excited and having fun, and now it was the opposite.
And Ikram was having a heart attack or something else horrible.
That wasn’t fair. Tiffany didn’t want someone to die after she’d just met her.
yeah, those dice gods. bet they were jealous they were going to have an awesome time partying. boo.
"i-i don't know," ikram said, still short of breath as she took tiffany's hand. the world swirled in and out of view -- the shard was trying to regain its hold over its escaped prey, but ikram was determined to remain conscious until she got the two of them away from the shard's influence.
her styler produced the psychic sign, which manifested as teleport.
"sorry to cut this short -- but i really feel like we should get a move on."
c8BGRNNt 1-10 closer to the shard 11-50 away from the shard's influence 51-80 into the amber glade 81-100 right in front of the shard
thud.
unceremoniously, the styler dismissed the psychic sign and deposited both rangers on top of the frozen-over amberwell.
away from the shard, ikram finally felt as if she could breathe again. she took a large gulp of air, refilled her lungs, and was glad that she'd saved herself -- and probably tiffany as well.
Tiffany had never teleported before, and came out of it dizzy and disoriented. “Wh-what happened?” She tried to stand and slipped. “Ow! Is this…?” She looked down. Yes, yes it was. Tiffany groaned. “Ugh, we’re on ice.”
On the bright side, she wasn’t drenched and trying to escape a number of Sharpedo. Still, Tiffany didn’t look forward to standing up on the ice. She was quite happy to stay sitting, even if her butt hurt.
“That was teleport, right?” Tiffany asked, looking around to try and discern where here was. “Why’d you do that?”
Sure, Ikram had been having a heart attack or whatever, but Tiffany had been enjoying her illusion prior to that and was a little upset at being torn from it – her home – so suddenly.
She shook her head. “I mean, what happened back there?”
ikram tried to catch her breath. it was a little hard to explain, but she supposed that there was no time like the present.
"well," said ikram, taking a deep breath (wow, air was good), "this sounds really harsh, but that wasn't real at all. it was just an illusion -- like your house isn't really in the middle of a forest, right? things like that."
ikram took another deep breath. she hadn't realized that speaking a few sentences like that would wind her.
Tiffany stared at the ice as she listened. Part of her had known the truth – because, really, a forest? – but it had been the part she didn’t like to listen to. She waved her hands. That didn’t matter right now, uh, anymore. “Nevermind that. What happened to you? You just… fell. And were choking..?”
Wait, no, Ikram’s face hadn’t comically turned blue. She couldn’t have been choking. “Or not?”
ikram wasn't sure. she didn't know, really. it had happened twice, in this part of the forest. maybe the haunted spirits part of messor rock rang true. ikram exchanged breaths.
"felt like someone was squeezing the air out of me," said the ranger, "i'm much better now, thanks."
she glanced around. they were on ice -- on the frozen amberwell. ikram hoped that meant that they weren't going to get swallowed back into that strange occurrence again.
Tiffany winced. That sounded painful. Horrible. She gasped. “Do you think a ghost Pokemon did it?” Eeep. Now that was a scary thought. It was bad enough that zombies were a thing, and now there might be hauntings as well…
And who knew who was next.
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Totes inexplicable.” Tiffany didn’t know for sure what that word meant, even though she could make a guess. For clarification, she asked. “So you don’t know why that happened?”
ikram sighed. her head felt heavy all of a sudden, and she rested it in her hands for a bit. she eventually glanced up.
"i'm not sure," said ikram, biting her lower lip. she was fine with mysteries, but she drew the line at it trying to kill her. "did they say the place was haunted? because you might be onto something there." she tried smiling, but it was kind of hard to when she had just had her life force sucked out of her some minutes ago.
"i'm just glad we got away before anything else happened. it would have been really awkward if we ended up eating mud."
Tiffany shrugged. She tried to remember if she had heard such a thing before, but nothing came to her. “I know there’s a lot of dark types there,” she offered, unhelpfully. Dark type Pokemon couldn’t do ghostly things.
Although, Tiffany did know that if you were super unlucky you’d come across a demonic scourge Clefairy with a shriek straight from hell. But there was no reason to mention that – it wasn’t a ghost either.
She was starting to feel numb from the ice, so Tiffany tried to, very slowly, stand up. “Ew, or worse!” Oh dear no, she did not need to visualise eating anything worse than mud. “Maybe we would’ve gotten lucky and ate berries.” Yeah. That could’ve been a possibility, even if it farfetched. “What do we do now?”
