Week 2.

[azumods]

WEEK 2. The new week begins with new surroundings. The city you've been growing accustomed to over the past week is now well behind you as you set out on your journey proper; the terrain still seems rocky and steep here as you move downhill and to the south, dotted here and there with small ponds to the east and rocky outcroppings that you can climb on to the west. There are also large expanses of tall grass here, and the entire route is flanked with tall trees leading off into the forest a short ways. You're more than welcome to explore; just don't stray too far from the group - you wouldn't want to be left behind out here, for any reason. Wild Pokémon are abundant here, as anyone venturing into the tall grass will discover; they aren't inclined to attack you, however, simply watching with dull, dead eyes as you stumble through the area they've come to call home. The trip is difficult, and it's a lot of walking, but it's not unmanageable; fortunately enough, the route you're on should lead you directly to Valor Lakefront, assuming there are no complications along the way. From Thursday and beyond, the route takes a sharp turn west; in front of you lies what's clearly the ocean, large rocks jutting out just offshore tempering the waves. It's safe to go in the water if you so choose - assuming you can swim, that is - and the forested terrain has given way to a large beach with patches of tall grass here and there. Interestingly, there's a house located on the beach; whether it's inhabited or not is difficult to tell. Of course, exploring slightly north of the beach will reveal a path. Maybe it leads somewhere important... CURRENT LOCATION: ROUTE 213 POKEMON AVAILABLE: NEAR WATER SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY | FRIDAY [OOC: Welcome to week two of Azume; feel free to make as many top levels as you'd like and tag out to other characters! This post is for all of your interactions this week... at least until the weekend. Don't forget that a write-up is due next weekend!]

Comments

cw: resident evil? body horror descriptions.

[bloodspent]

Yeah, I figured as much.

[It just...isn't really something that he can shake very easily, that's all.]

...I told you about that lady, Ada, who kept sending that guy after me. The one who wanted something I've got. She was one of our crazy people that tried to end the world - her and her boyfriend both, I guess, they were working on the same thing. She created this fucking huge...thing that was designed to kill everyone, she was making it in this big underwater facility. It looked a lot like what you'd get if you ripped a person in half at the waist - just...organs and whatever dangling out of it. It didn't have a face, either, just skin stretched over where its features should've been. Probably a hundred, hundred and fifty feet high.

I got to spend some quality time locked in with it for a while. Not really a good time.

[fatalstrikes]

[WHY WAS YOUR WORLD LIKE THIS]

...Wow. Even at their worst, none of our monsters are anywhere near that disgusting.

That sounds terrifying, though. What happened? Did you guys kill it somehow?

[bloodspent]

There were three other people with me - two guys and Sherry. My job was to get Sherry out of there, because she had something that could save the world. So that's what I did. The two guys stayed behind to try to kill it, and we left them there to...probably die. Sherry was really mad about it, but it's what they wanted to do, and they knew what they were doing when they decided to stay.

They did kill it, though, and one of them made it out afterwards. The other one didn't.

[fatalstrikes]

Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. It's good that the thing was killed and I'm glad one of them made it out, but...

[Well, that still sucks. At least Jake and Sherry were okay...?? Yikes.]

[bloodspent]

[Piers kind of didn't deserve...whatever happened to him, he's pretty sure. The guy was a jackass, but...]

I didn't know the guy all that well, and liked him even less. I was kind of pissed that he died, but it was for a really bad reason.

[fatalstrikes]

Yeah? What reason?

[bloodspent]

The other guy is someone I've got a personal issue with.

[...Piers was a jackass but Chris deserved it more.]

[fatalstrikes]

...Well, yeah, that's a bad reason, but I'm curious now. What did he do?

[bloodspent]

[...]

He killed one of my parents. My father.

[fatalstrikes]

Oh.

[Hang on, give him a second, he's kind of bad at this—]

I'm really sorry to hear that, Jake. That's... Man, that's gotta be really hard to handle.

[bloodspent]

Hey, don't worry about it. My father was an asshole who got what he deserved. I never even met him, anyway, so it's not like I was close to the guy.

[He's watching the water a lot more than he is anything else, though.]

It just still kinda bothers me, I guess.

[fatalstrikes]

[So it's not as bad as he thought it was, which is... good? Nothing about this situation is good.]

I think I can get why. Even if he was never in your life, it's still a terrible thing to learn.

[Yuri leans back a bit and glances up at the sky.]

...What about your mom? Did you know her?

[bloodspent]

...Yeah, I did. She was great, you know? Always looking out for me, made a lot of sacrifices so I didn't have to go without. Never got over the asshole, though - she talked about him a lot, about how much he loved us and when the time was right he'd come back for us, and about what we'd do when he came back. Obviously, he never did.

But my mom... Like I said, she was great. Loved her more than anything. She died when I was still a kid, though.

[fatalstrikes]

She does sound like a great person. I'm sorry to hear she passed when you were still pretty young, though. Where'd you go after that?

[bloodspent]

[He shrugs.]

I was already doing the whole mercenary thing by then, so...

[fatalstrikes]

...Sounds like it would've been pretty difficult.

[But if Karol's been through a lot of guilds and he's only twelve, maybe it's kind of normal for kids from Jake's world to get started with that sort of thing pretty young.

Yuri's quiet for a moment before speaking up again.]

I don't remember my parents. Not really sure what happened to 'em, but I was raised by the adults in the Lower Quarter. Flynn's dad more or less took me in, helped the others raise me.

I never felt like I was missing out on anything; it was a pretty good life, honestly.

[bloodspent]

...It sounds pretty good, actually.

[All things considered.]

If you don't feel like you're missing out on anything, maybe it's better that you don't remember. The stuff I ended up finding out about my father recently was pretty fucked up, and I kind of wonder if it'd be better if I hadn't.

[fatalstrikes]

Yeah. It was a pretty good life, all things considered.

[Living in the Lower Quarter was just kind of bad in general, but that wasn't any of their faults.]

What sort of stuff did you learn about your dad?

[bloodspent]

I...

[...Okay.]

Outside of just generally being a bastard and dicking over everyone he dealt with, he was a scientist who did a lot of experiments with stuff he shouldn't have been messing with. A lot of those experiments were apparently on himself, and by the time he died he was pretty fucked up. B.O.W. fucked up.

The guy I have the issue with is the one that put him down.

[This is so fucking sanitized, it's still fucked up but it's sanitized, but to the best of his knowledge he's not lying to Yuri; he doesn't like the idea of lying to the guy but at the same time, it doesn't feel like something he can just discuss with him, either.]

So he was pretty much goddamn insane. He died a few years ago, so he never really became my problem.

[fatalstrikes]

[Yuri's quiet through all of that. It takes him a moment to find words.]

...I'm sorry. It must've been really tough to hear about that. Even if he was never around in your life and he did all of that... well, he was still your dad.

[...]

Are you gonna be okay?

["My dad became a B.O.W." is pretty heavy stuff, goddamn.]

[bloodspent]

Yeah, of course. It's kind of hard to miss something you never had, you know?

[fatalstrikes]

Yeah. It still sounds difficult to deal with.

[...]

And hey, thanks for telling me.

[He definitely feels like he knows Jake a bit better now.]

[bloodspent]

Oh - yeah, no problem. You seem like a good guy, you know?

Just don't go telling anyone about that, okay?

[fatalstrikes]

No problem. I wasn't planning on blabbing to anyone anyway.

[No comment on the "good guy" thing but he looks pretty pleased anyway, okay.]