islandshore | Voicemail/IC and OOC contact;

Entry tags:

Voicemail/IC and OOC contact;

"This is Riku. Looks like you just missed me, so leave a message, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

If you're here for Training Center business, press 0, and I'll redirect you to our info."

[Should characters press 0, they'll be presented with a list of options:

1. Purchase pass.
2. Arrange battle.
3. Arrange private training.
4. Rental services.
5. Job opportunities.
6. Pokémon roster.

If your character presses 6, the following list will appear:]

[A second list pops up labeled "All-Out Only:"]

[A third and final list pops up labeled "Special Requests:"]

[If a character clicks on a Pokémon, a menu will pop up listing their stats, moves, whether they're available for rent, and their current status. See here for details.]

PGC contact;

[However, that's not all. Riku's set up a secure line, with its own automated message.]

"You've reached the Pokemon Guardian Corps. If you're here to report an emergency, press 1. If you're here to join the cause, press 2. For all other purposes, stay on the line."

[ooc: Please head your comments appropriately with video, text, and voice and note if you're calling for Training Center Arrangements.

For OOC Training Center business, please note which service you'd like to arrange. For rentals, list the Pokémon your character is requesting, what they'll be used for, and the total cost if your char is after more than one. I'm more than happy to handwave pass purchases, since I realize that repeatedly noting purchases could get a little time consuming.

For a job, I'm cool with an IC interview or OOC coordination. Whatever works best.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey! A charming young lady said you're the guy to contact about things involved with trying to address Team Rocket's activities. My name's Claude von Riegan, and I'd be interested in potentially offering my services...assuming you want them, of course.

Also I may or may not be in some hot water with Team Rocket already, so let's just say I'm motivated.

Hey, we're always looking for more recruits. Especially right now. After what happened over the holidays... Geez.

But what exactly's got you on their radar?

Well, it's related to what happened over the holidays! Specifically, I may have...borrowed one of their members' uniforms to do some light reconnaissance among their ranks.

[Which is to say, Claude stole a Rocket uniform right off a grunt's back and tried to infiltrate them. This didn't meet with a whole lot of success, but it was certainly audacious.]

I may have been seen. And threatened. By several individuals.

Edited 2021-01-25 11:17 (UTC)

Oh dang. That's pretty gutsy.

[Impressive. Definitely a good detail to add to a metaphorical resume.]

So basically, you got on their bad side and now you've got a target on your back.

Heh. Well, as someone who's probably in the same boat, I'd have to be pretty dense to turn you down. Always good to see initiative.

I've always had a habit for coming up with wild schemes and big gambles back home. It hasn't really changed here.

That said, I don't know how on the bad side of Team Rocket as a whole I am. I snagged a couple backup pokémon they were lending out to their foot soldiers - very weak ones - and I definitely annoyed a few of their operatives personally, but I don't know if I made anywhere near enough of an impact to get the organization's attention as a whole. I can't pretend my plan was particularly effective...but hey, it was the best I could come up with on the fly.

I have to say, the biggest draw for me of whatever resistance you've put together is more information about Team Rocket itself. I've got a thousand questions.

I can try to answer at least some of them. Can't say I'm the biggest authority of how they operate now, but I've seen their past schemes and I know how desperate they can get.

Well, the biggest question I have ties into their recruitment policy, if you can call strong-arming new arrivals into their ranks recruitment. How is it that the people they're forcing to work for them haven't collapsed the whole works from the inside by now? The person who recommended me to you told me that the location of their headquarters is more or less known thanks to someone on the inside, and I can't imagine all the things people literally forced into their ranks could give away out of dissatisfaction and spite.

I've also been wondering - someone told me that people can't be killed in this world. That you just wake up after 'dying' at a Pokécenter, so murder is impossible and people only die of natural causes here. Assuming that's true...I can imagine Team Rocket would be an organization very eager to try to find some kind of loophole in that clause. Death's an effective threat and tool in the hands of the unscrupulous and criminal, after all. Depending on how depraved they are, I could see them testing to see just how far one can stretch the definition of 'natural causes'. You don't know if they've gone to such extremes, do you?

I ask because one of the Rockets I pissed off definitely made a throat-slashing motion at me before he escaped, so I'm trying to figure out if that was an empty threat, a threat from someone who doesn't know murder is off the table in these parts, or an indication of something I need to keep an eye on.

I'm not sure why, either. There's no way every new Rocket recruit's on board with what they gotta do, so you'd think there'd be a more concentrated effort to gut it from the inside out.

All I can think of is their resources, numbers, and presence are the problem. You might not be able to die, but torture's probably still in the cards. Or they could bribe their members with money and benefits, too.

Guess the other option's that the immortality only applies to us? Would make for an odd imbalance, though.

Is it immortality? I was just under the impression we couldn't be murdered. Does it extend further than that?

Hmm... Not sure about old age.

Think part of it's the average ballpark most of us show up as. Usually kids to early twenties. Sometimes thirties and forties, but we haven't had a whole lot of elderly people show up, let alone stick it out long enough to die of natural causes.

I know the locals can die, though. Otherwise Pokemon like Yamask and Phantump wouldn't exist.

I had it explained to me as something like "we can't die of anything but natural causes", although to be fair, I don't know it's that's exactly been tested, so much as it's the current working hypothesis. What seems to be known for sure is that murder here doesn't lead to any kind of permanent death, at least not for outsiders like us, but it may be that any other functions or limits beyond that are pretty murky.

Anyway, I guess this is all getting kind of off-topic. It seems like you've got the same kinds of questions I do, and no answers yet. So setting that aside - what kind of anti-Rocket organization is this that you're running? What sorts of things do you and whoever you're working with do? And how can I help?

Yeah, murder's a no-go. Pokemon can prey on each other, but it's pretty uncommon. And they can die- there are gravesites around, but we don't really know their lifespans.

Honestly, in the past, we'd work as a network. Keep an eye out for suspicious Rocket activity, make plans to combat their actions. We had some more ambitious plans, like a break-in to their HQ years ago, but the biggest thing is keeping tabs on the more populated areas and being ready to strike the moment something shady goes down.

The regions are pretty spread out, and Rockets have struck all over the place, so the more coverage we have, the better we can work on setting up proper defenses and networking to fight back.

You say 'in the past'. Is that not what happens now? I didn't really notice any sort of anti-Rocket organized presence at the shopping center...which is a little surprising, to be honest. So many people were already gathered there, and then Santa offered people direct transportation to get there from wherever they were...I would've expected to see some of your people on the ground. Although I suppose that open mobilization of a coordinated anti-Rocket organization would carry its risks. It could paint members as targets if they were observed and identified by Rockets...

But I'm getting lost in my thoughts. The upshot is, was your group active during the shopping center raid? And if not, does that have anything to do with the past tense phrasing you used?

We do our best. We just lost a lot of good people over the years. Happens when this place is a revolving door.

I can say- I was there. Just got swarmed by a lot of grunts that kept me busy for a while. Definitely wouldn't sleep on something like that, though. The fact that the PGC dissolved for a while is what allowed the Rockets to pull off heists and schemes in the first place.

They also did a bombing at the Fuchsia gym a few months back- went there myself to investigate and help out. It's a lot like what they used to do around ten years ago, but for a while, the Rocket presence really diminished.

It's understandable to lose people, certainly. But a door lets people out and in. Have you been losing more than you've gained?

What's the PCG?

We got a decent number of new recruits a few months back. Few Aurora League members are on board, even.

What happened was that after a while, a lot of the old Rockets disappeared. A lot of our old members disappeared, too- and high ranking ones, at that. So for a while, ther was just this lull. Team Rocket seemed to lose momentum. Folks started getting complacent.

Then, this last year, things spiked up again. And here we are, trying to rebuild and regain that lost momentum.

PGC stands for Pokemon Guardian Corps. It was originally run by Lightning Farron- but she's not around anymore. Been trying to keep the dream alive, but the downside's that I kinda got crosshairs because of it, heh.

But we do have a few secure meeting places. Even got an inside guy on the team, and he's been feeding us some intel here and there.

Ah, I see...that would make sense, with both sides losing people and falling into a sort of cease-fire stalemate.

What are crosshairs? [Sorry, Riku, Claude is from a time before guns.]

Exactly. For a while, people got complacent. Neither side was on "active duty," I guess.

Crosshairs are... you use them to aim with guns. You look through, know where to fire.

Point is, I got a bit 'loud' a while back and the Rockets probably weren't too happy about it.

Ah. I come from a world where guns aren't a thing. I'm an archer, myself.

Can I ask what sort of 'loud' we're talking about?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Voicemail/IC and OOC contact;

Mid-January

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apologies for the delay! been a bit busy with work-related things

np!

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somehow I didn't get a notif for this- it's old, though, so I totally understand if you wanna drop i

That's fine!