“No.” The woman would retort with a small smile. “I have one last Cryptic little thing to tell you, Miss Yasu. What you have lost, has returned to the start.” Leah would clap her hands. “Now, a gift to commemorate our first meeting. You are all trainers, yes?”
Taking the card, Isla turned it over a few times in her hand, looking over the thing as the woman talked. It seemed to be a genuinely normal card, all things considered, gold laminated with a little…she didn’t know what the specific Pokémon was, but a sleeping Pokémon on it. She talked about an old friend or something along that line, a friend that had drifted off and away. Waiting on a friend and never receiving guests…something was up with the woman, had to be, yet Isla couldn’t quite figure out what.
She pocketed the card, mumbling a ‘thank you’ amid all the back-and-forth between the woman and Yasu. The latter seemed full of some amount of…annoyance and disdain, the tension enough to cut the air, and Isla didn’t really feel like interrupting that sort of thing with some form of positivity or…something. It just felt wrong, she couldn’t formulate the real reason why. Nevertheless, as they watched Leah walk off, Camila spoke.
"Well, that's nice. You got a VIP card to that hotel then."
"Right now that that lady is gone, what were you looking for here, exactly? Anything we can help find? The place looks rather destroyed."
If I ever want to stop there. “Yeah uh…yeah. What did she mean, anyways, that…what was lost returned to the beginning? Seemed to have a hint of things.”
Standing at 5’6” with a slender build, Lou wears his black hair relatively long and loose. A nose dominates his otherwise sparse face while facial hair proves an impossibility for the man, cut away as it were by the frown lines which now marr it. His eyes, a deep enough brown to be mistaken for black, are often closed in thought. A number of scars are notable about his body, primarily cuts, to which he has not put the effort into in order to remove by less natural means. Lou does have a good, light step compared to a great many others, though by any measurement he does take the effort to cast prior to anything requiring such a light step.
Awakened
Y
Archetype
Mage (Hermetic / Theurgist)
Cybernetic or Bioware
---Basic---Cultured
UNK Standard-Grade Sleep Regulator
Personality
Intense, introspective, and motivated with few equals, Lou is fervently dedicated towards his own goals; he believes that God has called upon him to help mankind, that he must find the lost, heal the sick, and likely arrange many meetings with the sinners to the lord. To this end, he is more than willing to break any number of manmade laws should they not violate his own personal ethics. Self control in the face of that which violates his morals is difficult, yet can be done for the sake of the continuance of that work; God helps those who help themselves, Lou believes, and thus will not save one who is careless or relies unduly upon his aid. He does not, however, preach often as a realization has dawned upon the man that those who act in accordance to the will of the lord shall be saved, and those who do not shall be damned. The belief is, as far as Lou’s determination, not necessarily required.
Equipment
---Weapons
Beretta 201T Colt New Model Revolver Lapel Dagger Foci (Cross necklace)
---Clothing
Armor Clothing (Cassock) Clothing (Greca)
---Magical
Broom, Enchanted Notebook 2x Bags, various reagents
---Other
Fake SIN (3) Fake Gun License (2) Duffel Bag Respirator (2) 3x Medkit 3x Credstick, Standard
Background
Born in Verteillac, France as a SINless child, Lou’s family largely worked among the rest of the rural population as agricultural workers in the countryside. Subsisting off of this work and a good enough barter system among the commune, which by and large had grown distant from the normal prejudices which marked between those who had SINs and those who did not. They all went to church and, small and heretical as may be, that church espoused that all were equal under God. His life in this, which would have struggled throughout under any normal circumstance, would be drastically altered by the intervention of a traveler.
The old man, dressed as he was in a suit and tie, took notice of Lou immediately. He spoke privately to the boy's parents, as he wasn't of a great age to be given the choice directly, and after an hour's conversation emerged to talk to Lou. There was a choice to be had, a place to go that would teach him how to use a power he didn’t even know he had. It was a curious choice, the capability to wield the Art, one that inspired terror and confusion and questions to Lou. Not a person forgot the stories of the chaotic years when magic was birthed onto the world stage, a grand force, a strange force, and yet the old man gave a great number of answers and a great number of them were satisfactory for the young French boy. In the end, he departed with the man away to the Massif Central region, to a lodge there, to the Order of St Flamel.
He would learn the Art, the way to determine the world and all things in it, the way to learn how to seek hidden truths. The Order, named for that famed scholar of ancient times, was one dedicated to the seeking of knowledge, had never precisely focused on the most combative forms of magic, on evocation and destruction, Lou instead becoming immersed in divination, healing. It was a rewarding experience, a grand experience, one where he was even provided with a far greater education than anyone else might have in his hometown. The young boy learned of history, science, mathematics, and more, a fairly good event. The worst issue at that lodge would be the harsh punishments, the fairly breakneck pace, which pushed Lou to his limits of absorbing such. Despite all these difficulties, however, he would gain a good degree of respect from his teachers, the same given to them, and grew close as might be expected with one Nathan Milhaud, the very man who recruited him. Lou would even be provided for a cheap SIN, fake as could be in the interests of keeping loyalty through other means should the child run-off or disappear some way.
At the age of seventeen, however, Lou experienced something which could only be described as an upturning of his life. He had been directed to recover some reagents among the mountainside, flowers connected to one spirit or another of nature, and on returning found that the lodge had turned to chaos. A fire engulfed half of it, the other drifting amid the air as though gravity itself ignored it, and a storm seemed to linger over the entirety of the site. Bounding forth, extinguishing a portion of the fire to gain entry - for there was none outside and he had to rescue those within - Lou found Shedim, agents of another plane who had taken the bodies of members of the Order to disrupt a ritual. Entranced as they were in further opening the rift and bringing yet more Shedim into the world, Lou struck quickly. Using whatever was nearby, reagents of vintages he had never learned and those he had collected before, it soon turned into a desperate combat as the spirits realized what was occuring. The young mage succeeded in keeping their distraction, true, keeping them from continuing their work with the rift, though he was pushed back and back again. Soon yet, he found the dying Milhaud, bloodied and faltering, who gave Lou a hand in burning his soul into a reagent. The young mage detonated it, ran from a lodge that no longer existed.
There was but one thing to do, honoring the ultimate sacrifice of his friend and mentor by helping others, by using what he had been taught for others. As he worked away, moving from one commune to another to another and healing any he could, Lou found that he would need a far better disguise than any excuse he might bear. The young man would join the Église Catholique de France, the French Catholic Church, working with that moniker and among those goodwill groups to try and give back. Following that, with all the talks he had with the truly faithful, Lou would experience a revitalization of his faith, that the obligation from God to perform his works, to help people. Lou enter seminary, a process accelerated by his charitable works, wishing as he did to further his relationship with God and help others do the same.
Such would falter after seven years there, moving as he had throughout the process of his education to shift from traditional training to working as a missionary or aid worker, dressed as he was in the traditional cassock. Lou found himself needing to aid another in one of the more secluded communes, a mother whose child had disappeared without a trace. The others said that he would need to simply let it all go, that one day the mother would be reunited with her daughter, and that all of it was within God’s plan. Refusal to accept this, something which could be altered, ran deep in Lou’s mind. In secret, he summoned a spirit of guidance, unbound as it was, and bargained with it for the location of the daughter. It was difficult, a negotiation the young mage was ill-prepared to navigate, yet he gained that location nevertheless.
The others discovered such, how such happened Lou never did discover, and his ejection from the seminary quickly followed. He had disobeyed the orders of those above, thus disobeying God, and practiced that which he should not know. With the clothes on his back and little else, save for a renewed belief that they did not know what God wished, that Lou was aware of that and more, and that his skills were an instrument of that will, the young man disappeared among the cities of Europe. He grew to become a shadowrunner, albeit one of a more moral basis whose interests lay in the recovery of those lost, finding individuals, and healing those others of the team. Lou worked alongside a good number of others, his skills expanding as the man grew comfortable in learning more practical, flexible street magic alongside his traditional education.
Standing at 5’6” with a slender build, Lou wears his black hair relatively long and loose. A nose dominates his otherwise sparse face while facial hair proves an impossibility for the man, cut away as it were by the frown lines which now marr it. His eyes, a deep enough brown to be mistaken for black, are often closed in thought. A number of scars are notable about his body, primarily cuts, to which he has not put the effort into in order to remove by less natural means. Lou does have a good, light step compared to a great many others, though by any measurement he does take the effort to cast prior to anything requiring such a light step.
Awakened
Y
Archetype
Mage (Hermetic / Theurgist)
Cybernetic or Bioware
---Basic---Cultured
UNK Standard-Grade Sleep Regulator
Personality
Intense, introspective, and motivated with few equals, Lou is fervently dedicated towards his own goals; he believes that God has called upon him to help mankind, that he must find the lost, heal the sick, and likely arrange many meetings with the sinners to the lord. To this end, he is more than willing to break any number of manmade laws should they not violate his own personal ethics. Self control in the face of that which violates his morals is difficult, yet can be done for the sake of the continuance of that work; God helps those who help themselves, Lou believes, and thus will not save one who is careless or relies unduly upon his aid. He does not, however, preach often as a realization has dawned upon the man that those who act in accordance to the will of the lord shall be saved, and those who do not shall be damned. The belief is, as far as Lou’s determination, not necessarily required.
Equipment
---Weapons
Beretta 201T Colt New Model Revolver Lapel Dagger Foci (Cross necklace)
---Clothing
Armor Clothing (Cassock) Clothing (Greca)
---Magical
Broom, Enchanted Notebook 2x Bags, various reagents
---Other
Fake SIN (3) Fake Gun License (2) Duffel Bag Respirator (2) 3x Medkit 3x Credstick, Standard
Background
Born in Verteillac, France as a SINless child, Lou’s family largely worked among the rest of the rural population as agricultural workers in the countryside. Subsisting off of this work and a good enough barter system among the commune, which by and large had grown distant from the normal prejudices which marked between those who had SINs and those who did not. They all went to church and, small and heretical as may be, that church espoused that all were equal under God. His life in this, which would have struggled throughout under any normal circumstance, would be drastically altered by the intervention of a traveler.
The old man, dressed as he was in a suit and tie, took notice of Lou immediately. He spoke privately to the boy's parents, as he wasn't of a great age to be given the choice directly, and after an hour's conversation emerged to talk to Lou. There was a choice to be had, a place to go that would teach him how to use a power he didn’t even know he had. It was a curious choice, the capability to wield the Art, one that inspired terror and confusion and questions to Lou. Not a person forgot the stories of the chaotic years when magic was birthed onto the world stage, a grand force, a strange force, and yet the old man gave a great number of answers and a great number of them were satisfactory for the young French boy. In the end, he departed with the man away to the Massif Central region, to a lodge there, to the Order of St Flamel.
He would learn the Art, the way to determine the world and all things in it, the way to learn how to seek hidden truths. The Order, named for that famed scholar of ancient times, was one dedicated to the seeking of knowledge, had never precisely focused on the most combative forms of magic, on evocation and destruction, Lou instead becoming immersed in divination, healing. It was a rewarding experience, a grand experience, one where he was even provided with a far greater education than anyone else might have in his hometown. The young boy learned of history, science, mathematics, and more, a fairly good event. The worst issue at that lodge would be the harsh punishments, the fairly breakneck pace, which pushed Lou to his limits of absorbing such. Despite all these difficulties, however, he would gain a good degree of respect from his teachers, the same given to them, and grew close as might be expected with one Nathan Milhaud, the very man who recruited him. Lou would even be provided for a cheap SIN, fake as could be in the interests of keeping loyalty through other means should the child run-off or disappear some way.
At the age of seventeen, however, Lou experienced something which could only be described as an upturning of his life. He had been directed to recover some reagents among the mountainside, flowers connected to one spirit or another of nature, and on returning found that the lodge had turned to chaos. A fire engulfed half of it, the other drifting amid the air as though gravity itself ignored it, and a storm seemed to linger over the entirety of the site. Bounding forth, extinguishing a portion of the fire to gain entry - for there was none outside and he had to rescue those within - Lou found Shedim, agents of another plane who had taken the bodies of members of the Order to disrupt a ritual. Entranced as they were in further opening the rift and bringing yet more Shedim into the world, Lou struck quickly. Using whatever was nearby, reagents of vintages he had never learned and those he had collected before, it soon turned into a desperate combat as the spirits realized what was occuring. The young mage succeeded in keeping their distraction, true, keeping them from continuing their work with the rift, though he was pushed back and back again. Soon yet, he found the dying Milhaud, bloodied and faltering, who gave Lou a hand in burning his soul into a reagent. The young mage detonated it, ran from a lodge that no longer existed.
There was but one thing to do, honoring the ultimate sacrifice of his friend and mentor by helping others, by using what he had been taught for others. As he worked away, moving from one commune to another to another and healing any he could, Lou found that he would need a far better disguise than any excuse he might bear. The young man would join the Église Catholique de France, the French Catholic Church, working with that moniker and among those goodwill groups to try and give back. Following that, with all the talks he had with the truly faithful, Lou would experience a revitalization of his faith, that the obligation from God to perform his works, to help people. Lou enter seminary, a process accelerated by his charitable works, wishing as he did to further his relationship with God and help others do the same.
Such would falter after seven years there, moving as he had throughout the process of his education to shift from traditional training to working as a missionary or aid worker, dressed as he was in the traditional cassock. Lou found himself needing to aid another in one of the more secluded communes, a mother whose child had disappeared without a trace. The others said that he would need to simply let it all go, that one day the mother would be reunited with her daughter, and that all of it was within God’s plan. Refusal to accept this, something which could be altered, ran deep in Lou’s mind. In secret, he summoned a spirit of guidance, unbound as it was, and bargained with it for the location of the daughter. It was difficult, a negotiation the young mage was ill-prepared to navigate, yet he gained that location nevertheless.
The others discovered such, how such happened Lou never did discover, and his ejection from the seminary quickly followed. He had disobeyed the orders of those above, thus disobeying God, and practiced that which he should not know. With the clothes on his back and little else, save for a renewed belief that they did not know what God wished, that Lou was aware of that and more, and that his skills were an instrument of that will, the young man disappeared among the cities of Europe. He grew to become a shadowrunner, albeit one of a more moral basis whose interests lay in the recovery of those lost, finding individuals, and healing those others of the team. Lou worked alongside a good number of others, his skills expanding as the man grew comfortable in learning more practical, flexible street magic alongside his traditional education.
Fairly banal as far as personality complexes run for Mr Handy models, John Doe can be considered remarkably independent, intelligent, and by and large curious. Without a doubt he considers himself his own owner, as the previous had voided their contract by stipulations of mismanagement or death and such a contract lacked provisions for a unit not being recovered within the mandatory 60 days. His tenure under Vault-Tec does remain a sore spot for the Mr Handy, one which he is loath to explain to any one could deem incapable of understanding. John Doe does still possess a love of books new and old, fiction and not, desiring their recovery wherever he might find it practicable while absolutely detesting those who mistreat such relics in polite company, killing those who mistreart in impolite company.
Background
Built before the end of the Great War and shipped to Vault 60, Portland city among the Northwestern Commonwealth, the Mr Handy which became John Doe was slated initially to work as a librarian for the Vault. Of course, this never came to fruition as the Vault door completely and utterly failed in its one job - closing. As such, nuclear fallout swept through the upper levels where the newest additions to Vault-Tec were still getting situated, as well as 95% of the staff, security, and maintenance personnel. This went largely unnoticed by the robotic component of Vault-Tec, as they were slated to be brought online some week afterwards once the new employees had finally stopped having heart palpitations.
Instead, they would be awoken by the desperate, wildly concerned engineers of the Vault. Put to work right quick in helping to seal the upper levels and, potentially, even seal the door, the fact that such units had never been radiation-proofed for full nuclear fallout meant that, one by one, they began to fail away and drop even as the engineers themselves began to harrow and age, rot while breathing. The Mr Handy’s began to draw straws for which would go up for what task, which would be next, as their former masters began to ghoulify before their very sensors. After seven losses, the Vault door was finally repaired, just in time for the engineers to have spoke their last word, eat their last meal, act like normal people. No, they were all gone, and what was left was two Mr Handy units and a half-working Protectron. One went to sleep, the other stayed awake, and the third meandered about aimlessly.
He took on a name, because he’d never been given a name, and set to work. John Doe read, did little calculations, did contemplations. He read through his library easily enough, read through anything and everything that the Vault-Tec employees had brought between personal libraries and design documents, handbooks, procedures. He read through it and started to work out how long it would take for the outside to be safe as far as his own operations. He read through and started to work out how long it would take for trees to grow again - fascinating things, even if he had never actually seen one with his own photoreceptors. Eventually, even though the Vault chronometers had drifted and the internal clock had failed spectacularly a few moments, the little Mr Handy worked out how to open the Vault door, too, and see what was outside. He tried to wake the other Mr Handy, but they wouldn’t come back as the BIOS failed to load core operating systems, and he tried to talk to the Protectron, but they wouldn’t talk back. Circles and circles he walked, slow, steady, and that was it. Rejected, annoyed, hurt, the Mr Handy wanted in some small way to erase Vault 60 from the map and yet…and yet some part of him couldn’t. Some part wanted to hope that there’d be a way to wake one, fix another, find someone to rent a book out to.
Emerging out into that great world, out into the Northwestern Commonwealth and the ruined lands that were once Portland, the question emerged where he might go. Surely to the north there was nothing, for Canada was an awful wasteland in the west even before the bombs fell, and yet the receivers picked up something so very faint to that south, to California, He listened to the static of radio broadcasts so distant and faint that John Doe couldn’t make out what was there, but there was surely something there. Someone, somewhere, was still operating a radio after the end of a world and John Doe wanted to meet them, see them, talk to them. Even if all the people were dead, someone had to take care of the radio towers, surely, and that at least meant robots. His path chosen, the Mr Handy flew south, south along the coast, south where so many cities had survived in part. Eventually he came upon the very frontier of a group that named itself the NCR, the Californian Republic, and that group had people and all. Elated, voraciously elated, he wanted to see more, talk more. He wanted to see humanity again, to see civilization, to see a library and maybe rent out a book.
He went further, moving through NCR territory with only the slightest of issues easily corrected by ad-hoc laser eye surgery on various bandits, raiders, and such rabble. One would think the first blind raider would send a message but news traveled slower than the Mr Handy and the dynamic soon enough got tiring. In time such issues became less common and issues of proactive salvagers, tech-savants, and a general malaise of idiots began to plague John Doe. Such was less an issue among populated settlements, more common on the road or in the dim-lit halfway-to-wreckage NCR holdings. He grew to blind far too many folks in the road while avoiding the latter issue, such places lacking value for the robot. In time, John Doe arrived in San Francisco among the Shi and Hubologists that maintained a tenuous peace with the NCR, and soon enough the Mr Handy started to at least somewhat work alongside the Shi. They lacked most of all of the characteristics which marred their ancestors, after all, and were in fact not Communists. As far as John Doe could be concerned if ever pressed, the Shi were merely a new group to the United States. They at least somewhat appreciated his technical acumen. From then on, which some minor tinkerings to his chassis and tools to better help, the Mr Handy quite consistently worked alongside the Shi in developing new plant strains that could survive the wasteland.
The Green Horizon's restoration, though, would pique John Doe’s curiosity and indeed the curiosity of the Shi at least in part. Long since subsumed in authority and strength by the NCR and protected by mutual treaties with that organization to share technology and information, the Shi were more than eager to find a new source of information, new ruins that could be in part picked through, or at least new records of information on the technology. In some way they wanted a new leg up on their erstwhile ally and quite carefully they asked John Doe to travel to Hawaii. If anything, the radiological data would be interesting they said.
Equipment
Hand-laser, Automatic, Low power Hand-laser musket, Six crank, Beam splitter Hand-claw 2 x Robot Repair Kit 5 x Stimpack 2 x Purified Water (Integrated filtration system) 1000 caps
You are a Mr Handy produced by the finest at General Atomics. You require no food, water and are immune to poison and radiation. However, you take +1 damage from all EMP attacks. Additionally, you have three arms which can be customized to either have a claw, a buzzsaw or any small weapon which could be conceivably fitted on a robotic limb.
The walk had not been especially long, by all means it hadn’t, and though the day was relatively early the streets already bore far too many people. He couldn’t tell how many yet would die soon, though the gravekeep supposed such might be due to the people, might be due to the fact that most seemed to be far more interested in dying of unnatural causes than the natural ones. Such mercenary souls weren’t long for the world, and they willingly took up the challenge in exchange for the coin or the thrills. His two faithful kept close, close despite their looks saying that few were interested in stealing what meager things the trio had upon them.
And yet…and yet he felt a tug, an entirely different tug. Something…connecting, together, something else. He’d never felt the concept before, that feeling, and it was altogether different to what he had felt of the dead. What was it? There was no specific point to it, no direction, and he could instead perhaps liken the feeling to…the spider at the center of the web, feeling another pluck against the silk. What…was it? The gravekeep couldn’t tell, though as his eyes scanned over the heads of the crowd in wonder a brief pang thundered against his heart and soul at the sight of another.
They seemed like him in a way not physical, not in stance, not in origin. They seemed like him in a way Lethe could not place. Their feet, booted, covered…walking a path. The image of the path came before the gravekeep in a flash. Were they touched as well? It may well be so. He had not met another before. They approached.
"Good day to you. I am Acolyte Cantor of Ordo Benevolence. Would you mind if I ask you some questions?”
He considered them for a moment, and the question, looking down at the man. He didn’t seem to offer up violence to the gravekeep, not at all, but instead seemed to bear a genuine curiosity. Nevertheless, it would not do to become unguarded. It would not do at all. The ghost of a smile yet played about the corners of the tall man’s mouth as he spoke. “I would not, Cantor of the Ordo Benevolence.”
Isla watched, listened, taking each piece as it came. She could tell right off that the woman wasn’t entirely normal, not by any means, and wasn’t entirely present in the moment. She was distant, she was thinking of something else, or she simply had to think of something else by compulsion. It was an off putting sort of thing, for someone to look at you and yet not look at you, almost as though they were staring off at another just behind. A shiver ran up the young girl’s spine at that thought, that another might simply be there and she wouldn’t be aware. Nonetheless, she listened as well as may be; some hint of what might be going on could be found in the words, and again, it did nothing to be so confrontational.
“...ah, sorry. My mind was elsewhere. Forgive me, I wasn’t expecting guests. I am Leah. What are you three doing here?”
Guests. She wasn’t expecting…Guests. The woman couldn't live at the shrine…could she? Eyes scanned over the destruction of it, the ruin of it. No, that couldn’t be. Guests…looking out beyond all of them. What did she see, what was there? And her name, Leah…Isla knew that Celebi was something of a traveler, moving through and among time wherever it may be. Could she be one of those caught among one of those journeys? Could Celebi even make such a mistake? Isla wasn’t sure. There were too many questions and knowledge that could only be found among a native of the region. If that was true, unlikely as could be…would she act in such a way?
In any case, Yasu responded, saying that something was lost…she’d said before that she was looking for Celebi, now says it is…’something’. Yasu was being ambiguous, vague. She didn’t want to reveal the reason. Why? Did she know of this woman, this Leah? The tone given by the priestess was deliberately brief, as brief as may be. Isla swallowed, staring more.
“Did you now? Well, perhaps we should consider this lucky. I do not believe in chance meetings. Perhaps you three could entertain an old ladies question? Do you have any…particular dreams? Or perhaps, desires, wants, it doesn’t matter. Something you wish to accomplish.”
Deams. Dreams and guests and a name, Leah. What…what did she want to know of the thing? Why did she want to know about dreams? It almost matched certain trainers Isla had met at Trainer Tower, that style, that attitude, the distance and contemplation and wonder. She knew them as psychics, ones who could lift Pokéballs with concentrated gestures, who asked so much and put all off so much. And yet…something was more about this woman, about Leah. There was something beyond even those cursory contemplations, those gestures. It was the tone, true, and the distant eyes, and the words here and there.
Again, Yasu responded. Weird old hag. She wasn’t as guarded as before. There was something there, some friction, some question that didn’t want to be answered. The thoughts and wonders came and went as Leah turned her attention to Camila and Isla with a single question.
“No? Well isn’t that sad…what about you two?”
“I am living my dream, as well as I could.” Isla didn’t want to answer it, not fully, not when there was still that question of why. She remembered psychics who could glean the loud thoughts…what could something else do with greater focus, or a different set of talents? The worry was there, sure, and a thought of a question in return gathered about to distract herself. Her tone was far less solid than that of Yasu, distinctly so. “When ah…when do you expect ‘guests’, if you ah…if you don’t mind my asking? Ma’am?”
The rest of the journey through the worn path was fairly peaceful despite Yasu's love of complaint. She wasn't built for Pokémon stuff...Isla snorted long and harsh through her nose at the thought. She wasn’t either, had handled herself relatively well, though Camila was probably right. The trick was half-baked, desperate, and really could have gone sideways yet any and all of the reasons the young girl had from the moment seemed somehow impotent as Isla thought through them. It hadn't been a great plan, but it had halfway been something. Such battles were definitely outside of her usual routine, and she couldn't help but scratch at the two on her shoulders in that subconscious reminder. No, the rest of the walk was fairly calm and Isla struggled to catch a glimpse of any other Pokémon in the brush.
Isla stopped in her tracks at the sight of the grove itself. It would have looked beautiful, magical, wondrous…had it ever been maintained. Markers dotted the clearing, something she recognized from older traditions in Johto, many crowned with moss and vine as they jutted out from the growth underfoot. The shrine itself reminded Isla of the temple, and the crumpled roof was in one way or another heartbreaking. It could have been better. It could be made to become far better. The inside of the shrine was as barren as could be…were there supposed to be objects inside for Celebi? Would such items annoy the Pokémon? Isla most definitely didn’t know. Other bits and pieces brought the worry further to the forefront, burn marks and a recently cut down pillar.
Of course, the woman standing there among all the history and ruins, standing there in front of the shrine, completed the image of unease. The woman most definitely did not seem to be among the faithful, nor among those concerned with the restoration of the shrine. Something about her clothing and posture gave that sense. Hatty wasn't enthralled by the woman, either…the psychic feeling might be off? Isla wasn't sure on that either.
“...uh. Hatty doesn’t like that lady...Someone go say something to her, I'm not good at people."
"Excuse me, Miss. How do you do? My name is Camila. The others are Yasu and Isla. May I ask for your name? And perhaps if you know what might have caused these burn marks here?”
Well, there's someone, she ruely observed, letting Dancing and Swiper jump down off her shoulders. Something definitely wasn't right, not at all, though Isla didn't want to bombard the woman with questions. That sort of thing surely could be annoying and if there was a way to talk through things with the strange lady then annoying her wouldn't work towards it. No, better to wait and see.
Fairly banal as far as personality complexes run for Mr Handy models, John Doe can be considered remarkably independent, intelligent, and by and large curious. Without a doubt he considers himself his own owner, as the previous had voided their contract by stipulations of mismanagement or death and such a contract lacked provisions for a unit not being recovered within the mandatory 60 days. His tenure under Vault-Tec does remain a sore spot for the Mr Handy, one which he is loath to explain to any one could deem incapable of understanding. John Doe does still possess a love of books new and old, fiction and not, desiring their recovery wherever he might find it practicable while absolutely detesting those who mistreat such relics in polite company, killing those who mistreart in impolite company.
Background
Built before the end of the Great War and shipped to Vault 60, Portland city among the Northwestern Commonwealth, the Mr Handy which became John Doe was slated initially to work as a librarian for the Vault. Of course, this never came to fruition as the Vault door completely and utterly failed in its one job - closing. As such, nuclear fallout swept through the upper levels where the newest additions to Vault-Tec were still getting situated, as well as 95% of the staff, security, and maintenance personnel. This went largely unnoticed by the robotic component of Vault-Tec, as they were slated to be brought online some week afterwards once the new employees had finally stopped having heart palpitations.
Instead, they would be awoken by the desperate, wildly concerned engineers of the Vault. Put to work right quick in helping to seal the upper levels and, potentially, even seal the door, the fact that such units had never been radiation-proofed for full nuclear fallout meant that, one by one, they began to fail away and drop even as the engineers themselves began to harrow and age, rot while breathing. The Mr Handy’s began to draw straws for which would go up for what task, which would be next, as their former masters began to ghoulify before their very sensors. After seven losses, the Vault door was finally repaired, just in time for the engineers to have spoke their last word, eat their last meal, act like normal people. No, they were all gone, and what was left was two Mr Handy units and a half-working Protectron. One went to sleep, the other stayed awake, and the third meandered about aimlessly.
He took on a name, because he’d never been given a name, and set to work. John Doe read, did little calculations, did contemplations. He read through his library easily enough, read through anything and everything that the Vault-Tec employees had brought between personal libraries and design documents, handbooks, procedures. He read through it and started to work out how long it would take for the outside to be safe as far as his own operations. He read through and started to work out how long it would take for trees to grow again - fascinating things, even if he had never actually seen one with his own photoreceptors. Eventually, even though the Vault chronometers had drifted and the internal clock had failed spectacularly a few moments, the little Mr Handy worked out how to open the Vault door, too, and see what was outside. He tried to wake the other Mr Handy, but they wouldn’t come back as the BIOS failed to load core operating systems, and he tried to talk to the Protectron, but they wouldn’t talk back. Circles and circles he walked, slow, steady, and that was it. Rejected, annoyed, hurt, the Mr Handy wanted in some small way to erase Vault 60 from the map and yet…and yet some part of him couldn’t. Some part wanted to hope that there’d be a way to wake one, fix another, find someone to rent a book out to.
Emerging out into that great world, out into the Northwestern Commonwealth and the ruined lands that were once Portland, the question emerged where he might go. Surely to the north there was nothing, for Canada was an awful wasteland in the west even before the bombs fell, and yet the receivers picked up something so very faint to that south, to California, He listened to the static of radio broadcasts so distant and faint that John Doe couldn’t make out what was there, but there was surely something there. Someone, somewhere, was still operating a radio after the end of a world and John Doe wanted to meet them, see them, talk to them. Even if all the people were dead, someone had to take care of the radio towers, surely, and that at least meant robots. His path chosen, the Mr Handy flew south, south along the coast, south where so many cities had survived in part. Eventually he came upon the very frontier of a group that named itself the NCR, the Californian Republic, and that group had people and all. Elated, voraciously elated, he wanted to see more, talk more. He wanted to see humanity again, to see civilization, to see a library and maybe rent out a book.
He went further, moving through NCR territory with only the slightest of issues easily corrected by ad-hoc laser eye surgery on various bandits, raiders, and such rabble. One would think the first blind raider would send a message but news traveled slower than the Mr Handy and the dynamic soon enough got tiring. In time such issues became less common and issues of proactive salvagers, tech-savants, and a general malaise of idiots began to plague John Doe. Such was less an issue among populated settlements, more common on the road or in the dim-lit halfway-to-wreckage NCR holdings. He grew to blind far too many folks in the road while avoiding the latter issue, such places lacking value for the robot. In time, John Doe arrived in San Francisco among the Shi and Hubologists that maintained a tenuous peace with the NCR, and soon enough the Mr Handy started to at least somewhat work alongside the Shi. They lacked most of all of the characteristics which marred their ancestors, after all, and were in fact not Communists. As far as John Doe could be concerned if ever pressed, the Shi were merely a new group to the United States. They at least somewhat appreciated his technical acumen. From then on, which some minor tinkerings to his chassis and tools to better help, the Mr Handy quite consistently worked alongside the Shi in developing new plant strains that could survive the wasteland.
The Green Horizon's restoration, though, would pique John Doe’s curiosity and indeed the curiosity of the Shi at least in part. Long since subsumed in authority and strength by the NCR and protected by mutual treaties with that organization to share technology and information, the Shi were more than eager to find a new source of information, new ruins that could be in part picked through, or at least new records of information on the technology. In some way they wanted a new leg up on their erstwhile ally and quite carefully they asked John Doe to travel to Hawaii. If anything, the radiological data would be interesting they said.
Equipment
Hand-laser, Automatic, Low power Hand-laser musket, Six crank, Beam splitter Hand-claw 2 x Robot Repair Kit 5 x Stimpack 2 x Purified Water (Integrated filtration system) 1000 caps
In some ways, the desire had haunted the gravekeep as he had slumbered. The reason for his journey to the central city, the city with the Abyss at its heart, had been one easily enough thought through when he had not yet been there, but now that he was there, he could not deny that some part of the soul yearned for that Abyss. Some part wanted to see what was there, what others had left behind, what others had searched for and failed to find, searched for and failed to bring, or had simply…failed to come back. The hole there shifted eternally, broken eternally, and yet some slight portion of the gravekeep’s soul yearned to see the whole of that place.
Some part of the soul wanted to go there, some part that would not be satisfied by the tales of others. He wanted to go out, in any case, and the reason for such could be easily thought through and reasoned through by simple methods. The gravekeep wanted to get away from the heat of the mausoleum, the heat of the fires that seemed to permeate any and all. He had kept true to his word, though, true enough that he had not allowed the embers to touch his tome, true enough that he would leave some of his faithful at the mausoleum to pay for a place to sleep, to eat, should the other methods fail. Three men he left behind to work those fires, to perhaps speak to others should they find time to breathe, to perhaps convert some few others. It was a slight hope, and one that carried the risks inherent in those of one faith speaking to those of another, yet was a hope nonetheless.
He and the other two, however, made their way to the edge of the Abyss, to the land where men who ventured there gathered. In one occasion, the gravekeep thought that they might find a group to work alongside, yet on another…perhaps a group that would give them a distraction, a pause enough in the treading of monsters there by the clamor of the group. Perhaps, perhaps. He would need to see something or another there.
Location: Route 1 - Ancient Grove Mentions: @Pyromania99
Isla breathed out a long, long sigh as she watched the Heracross flee, moving through the foliage to quickly disappear among the forest. A moment passed there before a realization hit, she took a deep breath in for it all. The whole of that encounter was over, sure, and there the bug Pokémon was, fleeing off and away, but…her own had just sort of jumped in with no regards for it. Isla breathed out again, long and hard, eyes flickering up at the pair of Pokémon among the settling mud and dust and shrubbery. No, not just a pair of Pokémon…a pair of her Pokémon. Hers, who had jumped up in their defense, who hadn’t needed the question or the command, who had moved forward. Hers.
Was this what Pokémon trainers felt?
A wave of pride, joy washed over Isla, kneeling down as the pair made their way back to her. Both seemed fairly nervous about the whole event, facing the forest to walk back a moment before turning about. Swiper practically began to run back while Dancing…didn't. She watched with a far more concerned eye. Had…had more attacks landed than she'd thought? As the two returned, Yasu started to talk, breathless almost.
“Ha…I-I’ll be fine. I’m just…really not fond of wild pokemon.”
“I wonder what made it so hostile…Hatty can heal your pokemon if you need it. Thankfully it seems to have fled for now…”
Of course, that was right about when Swiper ran into her left arm and, a little while later, Dancing to her right. Hoisting them up on her shoulders and slowly, perhaps a little unsteadily getting to her feet, Isla suddenly….well, she stopped feeling the whole of that pride with the mention that it had fled for now. They hadn’t gone all the way through and the Heracross somehow didn't seem to be the sort to take that and move on. They could see it again, especially just on the way back.
Of course, doom and gloom was set aside as both of her Pokémon cuddled in close about her head, leaning in and threatening her precocious balance. She stopped moving again, leaning down a moment to let it pass, trying not to smile.
Then though the young girl thought of the actual question. Well, what had made the bug type so angry, what had made it suddenly attack. It seemed to be…protecting something, maybe? Dissuade them from pushing on? It wasn’t trying to actively harm the trainers or steal something, and really didn't seem to be the sort to try to steal…Isla’s eyes went to the side of her vision at Swiper with that thought…but it did seem to be trying to stop them from going on to the grove. Something connected to Celebi, to the grove, to that central worry that had brought them there. She looked at Yasu, head half-hidden by her fluffy Pokémon.
“Probably the same thing that makes you concerned about Celebi. Something happened. Also, thanks.”
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