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place:taqnateh

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A tiny settlement at one of the highest spots on Sehto (atop the extinct Thorn volcano's crater ridge), Taqnateh is purely set up for pokémon trainers - it consists of a PokéMart, a PokéCenter, and the ominous pokémon gym set within the confines of a semi-ruined castle or cathedral of sorts, catering to all clichés. Breaking through this all is a glaring yellow sign at the town's entrance: “Private property. No trespassing. Pokémon trainers only.

The entire settlement is rather inaccessible, rather to detriment of its own inhabitants, who have to subsist on hardy and mostly tasteless plants grown in the area - or head down to Vale to acquire food, which is, not to beat around the bush, effectively impossible on foot. As such, Jagdish Tsukinaka tends to run errands for people, enlisting the aid of Teleportation- or Fly-friendly pokémon.

Descriptions from Sessions

Collected from Arsaga:

Either way, the broad path up leading up the mountain as a slope seems mostly devoid of life - apart from the occasional dry-looking bush, reminiscent perhaps of feinbos, the landscape seems to be purely made of rocks, jagged, as though the elements never weathered them away.

It was easy to get warm in the warmth-soaked air - it took both of them no time at all. It's a little bizarre, all things considered, given that the sky is so spotlessly clear, which usually drains warmth away from the ground at night at rapid speeds. But after two hours of ascending the slope - motions becoming more and more lethargic - the sky has drained of all remnants of colour, leaving the world as if encased in a black husk.

And then the world seems to dip - and the rocks part at each of their steps against the new view, yielding a bizarre sight… the half-ruined remnants of what may at one point have been a castle, particularly its left side collapsed in on itself, gothic in its designs, and the hinted specks of two other houses as the sole sign of civilisation up here… a true settlement: The gym, a PokéCenter and a PokéMart, eeriely nestled amongst the alien landscape, the highest point of the castle towering high above the rest of Sehto.

There seems to be no light here at all - but the white of a sign still prominently catches their eye in the dim starlight leaking down from above. 'Private property - do not trespass', with a smaller add-on below, in a less legible script: 'Gym circuit pokémon trainers only.'

The lack of activity is chillingly absolute, even though the air up here is, if anything, warmer than it had been immediately around Roaring Hollow, an almost soothing, inviting warmth, though starkly contrasted by the spikes of huge slabs of rock scattered around this miniature dale carved into the landscape. The castle seems unusual in some way, undefiniably unsettling, as though its heavy wooden doors might contain demons rather than a gym, and shifting them open would be like taking the lid of Pandora's box…

The PokéCenter seems to be locked and closed up, perhaps for the night, perhaps forever? It's hard to tell - it doesn't look abandonned, at least. Neither does the PokéMart, though the same can be said for it - as much as they don't like the idea, it's going to have to be the castle… or a tedious way back to Vale with no new information.

The doors seem to be heavy - several inches thick, judging from the sound of her knock - and they're huge, more like a gate than anything. Their surface is full of little, but ultimately meaningless designs - at most runes, but most likely just pretty patterns carved into the wood to make it look less boring. They wait a while - but there does not seem to be a reaction. Maybe they should try to let themselves in? Heavy though they may be, they don't appear locked.

The door moves with extreme lethargy, cracking open fractionally at her efforts - it's way too large to conveniently move, so it's natural to simply stop with the pushing and shoving once the gap is big enough to allow a human to pass through. And pass through they do, into a particularly inky blackness, the thin sliver of starlight they're letting in from outside barely making their shapes cast shadows even immediately beside the door. Silence.

In the darkness, two strange, almond-shaped magenta sources of light expand into visibility… eyes? The silence, though, persists, until that soft light extinguishes abruptly, leaving them with a more sullen sense of loneliness. Sleeping on the ground - outside - suddenly seemed like a good alternative, but something seemed to compell them to stay, like an inaudible 'Please hold the line.'

After what seems almost too much a time to be waiting - prompting Raiko to whisper: “Why are we waiting, exactly…?”, though the question itself is infused with a strange doubt, as though he was not sure an answer was necessary - a crisp voice suddenly fills the obsidian slab of night within the hall they must be in: “You are trespassing.” A subtle threat lingers in those words.

The room seems spartanically designed, with the bed set into the wall so that three of its sides end against stone. […] [There is] dim light in the room that's seemingly flooding into it from the ceilings' edges. The door seems to be made of wood, judging by its appearance, but its texture is wrong, almost like warm metal, though it seems to give way ever so subtly under pressure of his fingertips, again like wood. A design is carved into the surface, appearing like a tribal tattoo variant of an eclipsed sun - very pretty, and not anywhere near as ominous as the design might invoke in other renditions.

It's hard to view this room as a prison cell, regardless, given its design and level of comfort, but at least his rational mind was tangibly aware of the situation. There's nothing else in the room, it seems, except for… actually, except for a folded piece of paper stood on the bedside table, beside a vase. It's labelled 'To: Raiko Zelenka'.

The corridor periodically passes under archways supporting its high ceiling - occasionally, doors appear on the left and right, though they're not very numerous. Far more often, a corridor cuts their path, their left pathways always ending fairly soon and well within their view, a single gothic window high up on the thin strip of wall. The right pathways tend to be more convoluted - and after a while, he turns into one, absent-mindedly beckonning Raiko to follow as though he wasn't already doing so. This particular corridor is straight and, at half its length, seems to be punctured by a particularly large hole in its wall… they pass by it, glance through revealing an arena in the dim lighting of the cloud-filtered daylight that is let through the high, cathedral-like windows in that particular hall. The corridor ends in a T-junction into another corridor much like the one they'd initially entered.

place/taqnateh.1354116576.txt.gz · Last modified: 2017/11/18 21:34 (external edit)