Crusader Lord

New Dawn of Civilizations

Eliza Marie Lee

Year - 0

Location - ??? (Approximately near modern Okayama)

It all began....in darkness. As if her body was suspended within a vast void of nothingness, deprived of sense and any way of telling up or down or what direction was where. Like being a leap upon the wind, in some vague sense of the word, but she couldn't quite put any proper words to it nor find a description for it all. Yet as long as she seemed to dwell inside such a feeling, her stream of conciousness not fully awake but more so closer to sleep, other sensations came along with it all. The taste of salty water spray, the creeping feelings of cold across the surface of her skin, the feeling of something like wet sand upon her back, and the feeling of damp hair as if she'd gone to bed after a shower without bothering to dry it much less brush it.

Yet for some reason, she didn't awake at first. Her body, her mind, were coming to slowly...but at least they were doing so surely from the feeling of it. It was almost dreamlike initially, and yet even then it began to become more and more palpable the more she began to question what was going on. It had been only a couple bottles of beer, and wasn't the lightest of weights either. Nor was she a heavy drinker. Had Mei tossed something in there as a prank, to drug her or something? Hmm. No, that wouldn't likely be the case. Slip szechuan peppers into her food to get a kick out of it, sure, but she'd always make sure to help her clean up afterwards. Not drug her and rob her and toss her into the ocean or something like that.

Ugh. Her head hurt just trying to think about things with what little yet growing awareness she had about her. All the same, the sounds of voices and the feeling of warm but weathered hands pulling her by her shoulders was certainly new. Kidnappers, perhaps? It would have made a chill run down her spine if she'd been awake enough, just at the thought of that much alone. Yet another set of hands would grab her feet, even if awkwardly, pulling them up after feeling herself being drug along the sand somewhat. Like she was being pulled away from the-...sound of crashing waves and the taste of salty water? Now that was at least something.

Yet her mind would begin to fade oonce more to some extent as they moved along, time itself remaining somewhat of a blur alongside sensations of moving up and down and ever forward, until things like the sound of whistling wind through the trees and ultimately more voices and the feeling of something warm nearby and then another something warm being wrapped around her body became much more recognizeable. Her body clutched at the covering, trying to avoid shivering as best as she could, curling up tighter akin to a freezing child left out in the cold.

...By the time she truly began to awake, then, her green eyes cracking slowly open as a sluggishness began to run out of her body bit by bit. What had come before remained as vestiges of fuzzy memory, though continued to be palpable in her mind as she tried to memorize the things she'd been feeling like before. As if trying to embed a vivid dream in one's memory before they let themselves fully awake from their dreaming slumber.

And what remained before her eyes was something that seemed straight out of some kind of ancient history book.

In the direction of her feet sat an open doorway, sunlight streaming in as if it was morning, yet it seemed covered from above despite the natural lack of a door in any case. Said light was the thing her eyes were first drawn to as they squinted at it all, before her head natuarlly turned to her right to look at the next most visible light- a proper, kindled fire that sent a trail of smoke up and out of an upper opening near the top of the roof on the inside. Like it had been opened up for air flow or something, but not directly allowing rain inside or something of the sort. Yet the walls, the roof, it was all made of...straw? Thatch? And beams made of bound logs of wood stretched out, embedded in the ground and supporting the whole thing in a rather complex but primitive-looking fashion.

Heck, as she looked down she found her head resting on part of the apparently large fur pelt blanket lying over her that had been keeping her warm, and the floor itself was simply dirt to boot. Just what or where in the world was-

"Mom! Mom! The weird lady's waking up!"

A young voice cut through the air, vaguely female from the sounds of it, and as the waking eyes of Eliza looked sharply to the side she saw the blurry form of something small run up to the front door while shouting the same message over another one or two times. As her eyes began to better adjust, however, it became clear that this smaller figure was a child. A younger child at that, with dark hair styled into two small tails held by red-colored ties behind her head near the bottom of it that lay down on her upper back. Her legs were covered in a tan-colored form of knee-length skirt, perhaps wrought of animal skins, while her torso was covered in a similarly-colored and designed shirt. It was as much as she could make out, at any rate, before a few more figures ran over into the entrance of the somewhat pit-dug (upon further inspection of the floor at least) home's entranceway.

"Oi, Kimyo, we heard you the first time!"

A younger, but not as young, male voice cut through the air like an accusatory knife toward the former, who seemed to not take it lying down in any case.

"Shut up! Mom said to say when the weird-looking lady woke up!"

Ah. Siblings?

"Narasu. Kimyo."

The two younger voices went silent with a suddeness as an older, feminine voice cut through the air with a more than stern tone to it. Even she could tell the tension in the air had suddenly stopped between the two prior voices, and a familiarity crept in that she knew instinctively. Yes. When some moms got pissed, or raised their voice, you stopped unless you wanted more than enough trouble to follow therafter. Or, well, at least that was her impression of it all on an instinctual level.

The source of the older feminine voice stepped inside, a taller shadow than either of the children at first until she got closer to Eliza and knelt next to her. Her face was...well...rather foreign looking, with her hair long and a dyed cloth headband tied about on the top of her head. Her clothing was similar enough to that of the younger child, with a knee-length skirt and short-sleeved top of similar tan coloration, eyebrows a little harier than she'd normally expect of another modern woman to keep, and yet her light brown eyes seemed to look Eliza over with a level of focus only to be had by a doting caregiver.

"Hmm. She's a bit slow to wake, but after where your father and his brother found her it isn't much a surprise. Tch.

Kimyo, get your sister from next door and tell her to bring some water from the river. Narasu, go tell your father she's awoken. I'll stay here in the meantime to tend to our guest."

Two children would nod before running off, though small hints of noise would insinuate that there was one last brief exchange of words between them while they were mostly out of their mother's earshot. Er...mostly. Just mostly. Enough to elicit an eyeroll from the woman before Eliza, at any rate, as the American attempted to sit up with some difficulty and the woman would let a 'tch' escape from her lips as she moved to assist her. From here, the woman ensursed she could at least sit up on her own, well enough if nothing else, before wrapping the hide fur blanket tighter around her.

"Don't mind the children, though my husband will soon be here I hope. He wished to learn when you finally awoke, at least after carrying you here from the shore this morning as he left to go fishing."

Fishing? The shore? A hand on her own back revealed some sand still stuck to it, of all things, alongside the new dirt. Mild surprise flicked over Eliza's face, ultimately, before the woman before her let out a sigh. But...wait, this had to be something strange happening. Like some strange primitive-living types just took her or something? But a beach? It made sense with what she remembered, with how knotty her hair seemed to be as she used the same right hand to feel it somewhat, and it fit with some of the sensations she'd felt and could still recall just enough from before.

Even this woman, she seemed to be some kind of asian person while also seeming a bit...different too? It was odd. But at least they were all living people that were speaking English.

"Do you not know how you ended up here?"

"I...I do not know."

As the words left the woman's lips, and then her own in turn, Eliza focused on how their lips moved and how the words felt Yet none of it seemed to match regular English, even though she understood it all just the same and as plainly as if it were regular American English. Albeit English without an accent? Kind of. Somewhat? It was an alien sensation, such that she tried to somewhat put it out of her mind. None of this made any sense, none of it! Had she been kidnapped, had she-....she could barely sit up with how groggy her body felt. Had she been set afloat in the ocean or something?

"Tch. You must have come from far away to look as you do, set adrift in the sea and arriving near our village."

"V-Village?"

"Mmhmm. It is said our forebears moved from place to place, and yet our people live more and more together in places such as this. No longer need we follow the trails of game, but reap our bounty from the sea, tend to the groves of trees near to us, and some still seek the game that lives in our woods."

The foreign-looking woman lightly shook her head side to side, before pulling the blanket righter around her and taking her right hand in both of her own to examine for a minute.

"Hmm. Hands that have seen much work, much labor, much like my husband's own. Yet not so much work as to bear the scars of too much, from what I gathered of your after they brought you into our home. No stranger to effort. Good."

The woman looked up at Eliza again, her face maintaining a sort of practical stoicism as she looked back into her eyes.

"Tch. And you bear eyes that remind me of the stone my husband's brother brought from the nearby mountains once. Brighter though. Beautiful, in a way."

The woman was trying to get a read on her, like the intruder in someone else's home she apparently seemed to be despite the care being given to her. Eyes carefully scanning over her for potential threats, and looking over her before (apparently) to try to get an idea of her life without knowing anything about her. On one hand, Eliza almost felt offended that someone would suspect her of anything like such! She wasn't some thief, she wasn't...she wasn't anywhere or with anyone she knew, and if she panicked too much it would be more than a small amount of trouble. That was for certain. So she had to follow the steps of things.

First...try to get an idea of things. Of these people. Of what in the world was going on, as she had no clothes, no cellphone, no anything. Yes. That would be a good start.

"Do you happen to have a name, stranger? Something you go by?"

"...Eliza. My name is Eliza."

"Eriza? Not a name known around here. Very foreign sounding. Strange," the foreign woman commented without skipping a beat, before letting Eliza's right hand go and putting a hand to her own chest now before she continued speaking, "I am Kunne."

Kunne. Kimyo. Narasu. All weer names that sounded somewhat...Japanese to her? Ugh. It made her head spin. But even so, she seemed to be waiting for Kunne's husband to return before anything else. Not like she could get up and run if she wanted to right now anyways. Had to get a lay of the land, of the situation, before doing anything else. Though, well, at least they knew each others' names now to kick things off.

It was a start, as small a start as it was, to finding out what in the world had happened to her.

New Dawn of Civilizations

@TruckKun Well, optimally and honestly I would like to not share a location with someone on my end. This especially given that we both have characters with smithing skills.

But if you are really intent on Japan I could maybe switch locations? Whatever works best. ^^;

New Dawn of Civilizations

Eliza

Name:

_{Eliza Marie Lee}

Gender:

_Female

Age:

₂₇

Appearance:

_{Eliza was born with fiery red hair as vibrant as it could seemingly naturally be, for what it was worth, with a personality in her youth that seemed just as vibrant. Her fair-skinned body, however, has never been much for the sun when the burning light of the sun comes into play. Even so, her piercing green eyes are something of note when looking at her generally soft and narrow-shaped face, standing out like ‘emeralds’ according to her mother many years ago. Yet while her body bears a natural hourglass-type shape and full chest, something that would seem to be an enviable thing to others, she never paid as much mind to it outside of having to find the right bras to wear. One can tell, however, that from her arms and legs that she had done a fair amount to build up muscle from exercise and other physical activities. Not the sort of muscle one might see on a bodybuilder, where size seems to be most obvious to the common person’s eyes, but the well-rounded sort of muscle that would be found on a very physically active person. This is especially notable with regards to her arms in particular, on the left upper arm of which she bears a somewhat long but not too wide scar of sorts gained during the process of practicing blacksmithing over the years.}

Personality:

_{A diligent hard-worker who learned to apply herself to things the 'practical way' (as she'd say it) from a young age, being especially driven when it comes to her own personal goals in life. A person who feels the very much regular human drive to and is able to generally seek to socialize with others and 'be included' or 'belong' to enough of an extent, and in part wishes to help others, and yet has stood apart from the 'average person' in her own nation and day and age in a number of ways that left her feeling distant otherwise. Someone who enjoys the process of learning new things that can benefit her own personal development, and yet at the same time whose sense of self-preservation can be....quite strong under the right circumstances. She is most often an 'action oriented' type person who won't hesitate to do something herself with her own two hands, under certain circumstances even preferring to do things herself, and yet who is likewise a sociable and relaxed type in other ways who isn't afraid to crack a smile even while hard at work or make a joke here and there. She does enjoy socializing with others to a good enough extent indeed, though she doesn't fully consider it a 'nessecity' all of the time due to being to some extent a proper introvert.}

Nationality:

_{United States}

Education:

_{Doctor of Phamacy (PharmD)}

Former Occupation:

_{Pharmacologist}

Skills:

• Pharmacology - While things such as problem solving and critical thinking and socializing and organizing one’s self and such things are components of her (now former) job, she basically researches, develops, and tests new drugs for potential use in the most basic sense. Finding out side effects and such, etc, also falls within this realm of skill for her.
• Blacksmithing - Is a skilled blacksmith not through talent, but frankly through her passion and work put into it. Has dug a good bit into the history of it and such as well, looked at stuff like how they made Wootz steel in India or such and sought to recreate it along the way, and other tidbits like that which she’s gleaned or picked up or curiously sought out over the years by chance while practicing this intensively as a hobby.
• Hunting/Woodland Knowledge - Albeit with modern guns or a compound bow, but she hunted with her father a good few times over the years when she was younger. Last went hunting with him about a year ago as of most recently. He’s also rather often tried to in the process point out how to be safe in the woods, things to avoid, etc, that come part and parcel with it. Not that this latter knowledge helps in any particular way when you are teleported to 2700 BC Japan and were living in the United States of America in 2026 beforehand. Good news is, she can gut a deer properly and wields a knife rather well at least!
• Cooking - She can cook in general, learning from both her mother (who tried to teach her something), and from Mei’ who taught her a few things to cook while they hung out with each other sometimes and shared a bit of knowledge with each other over the years.
• Modern Education (21st Century) - Has recieved an accelerated but full modern education in the public school system of her home nation/state, giving her some breadth of knowledge with school subjects such as English, Math, History (mostly US history), and Science (chemistry and biology) along the way. This includes classes she took in college, including both ones tied to her primary degree and additional basic-level elective credit classes including: Public Speaking, Sociology, Music Appreciation, and learning to speak Spanish.

What You Were Doing Last Before Falling Asleep:

_{Was hanging out with her best friend Mei at the latter’s place, had a couple of beers, cooked some food, talked about the week and Mei's boyfriend and rambled about Damascus steel, binged some new show on Netflix, and then crashed on the couches and fell asleep promptly thereafter.}

Where Did You Wake Up At:

_{Roughly near the red dot, the one with an arrow drawn toward it, on this linked map of Jomon-period settlements in ancient Japan: https://i.imgur.com/oV9e2aO.jpeg}

Background:

<sub>Eliza is someone who from a young age was seemingly blessed with a sound and conventionally beautiful form for the modern age, down in the depths of the good ol’ USA, with her father even nicknaming her ‘my little star’ simply for the way her little eyes seemed to twinkle when she was happy. Her mother, a feisty sort who had worked as a female firefighter prior to marrying and ‘learning that my own mother had the best, and hardest, job in the whole world’ in the woman’s own words, would take the last and youngest of her three children and would still try to ‘whip her into shape’ in the metaphorical sense all the same. With two older brothers, it seemed that Eliza would be fated to be the sole daughter of the family, though in practice she often hung out with her brothers and even some of their friends and learned to go hunting in the woods from her father after much (aka: she barely had to ask to get him on board) effort to convince him to do so. Yet as much as the young girl enjoyed working with her hands on something or another, whether it was food alongside her mother or goofing off in the nearby woods to their local subdivision with her brothers, something also became quite notable to those about her. It became more and more apparent that she bore something of an…incredibly good memory, one that would easily qualify as ‘photographic’ by its very nature. Indeed her ability to recall information and things she had seen and experienced in rather excruciating detail were something that made her stand out even more so in her youth, even in class, and which led her teachers to begin to excitedly push her proud parents to ‘get this potential genius on a good path’!

…But what began as trying to make her parents and teachers proud would begin to become something of a burden to the girl. She went bit by bit from being ‘Eliza’ to ‘the prodigy kid we compared to Nikola Tesla’, and things began to go from being ‘fun to learn and exciting’ to more and more so ‘is this what I want’ and ‘what do I do if I fail everyone’s expectations of me’ alike. By the time she got to college at the age of thirteen, she felt she was falling behind even having a social life and began to dig in her heels as new surging teenage hormones and the rapidly mounting stress in her life from a more rapid education path began to grind back against her. She needed more. She needed an outlet. Something. Something to do with her hands that let her take the crap inside of her head and let it out. Thus it was in this time period that, late one night browsing the internet, she found a video on…blacksmithing? It seemed like just hammering metal to her mother, but it felt like something she was curious about at the very least enough so to ask her parents about it after a few weeks of watching videos and such about it sometime before she turned fourteen years old.

Her parents at first would raise an eyebrow at her wishing to see it in action, but hoping she might find some kind of way to better help her work out ‘that youthful energy’ they all the same took her to see the nearest blacksmith they could try to find. From there, the story wrote itself. The feeling of a hammer in her hands, heating the metal just right, learning how to get a feel for the forge, it spoke to something inside of her that she hadn’t realized yet. She had found, of all things, a hobby just for herself that she had an actual passion for for once in her life. She didn’t compare to the youngest of geniuses in the world, though her parents would work to get her on some kind of medical track in college, and yet her hobby was something she could pour more energy into outside of other physical activities like exercise and swimming or even running for her local high school track team as she’d do after some negotiations. Even so, her physician (a kindly sort who cared for her) would see a new and worrying rise in stress despite this new hobby and would eventually push for her to get therapy as she was sent on a collision course right into medical school. In turn, the subsequent therapist would second just how badly she was beginning to do under the mountain of things placed upon her, such that it brought her own proud but beforehand somewhat blinded parents to a grinding halt of sorts by the reality.

They still wanted her to take a medical track, but at the same time they wanted her alive all the same. Some of the pressure laid upon her backed off, she chose a route of pharmacology rather than surgery, and in turn her therapist likewise sought to help her learn to manage such pressures in the future due to how common mental health struggles had become in the modern medical workplace. And so, much like a cracking and worn piece of metal, Eliza and her family worked to help reforge her stronger and better moving forward. Not something that would come overnight, no, but something that would have to come more long term. One day, one thing, one hurdle at a time.

By the time she turned 27 years old, Eliza was now both a realized and working pharmacologist and was likewise one of the youngest to have become one and begun practicing as one. To her parents it was the financial stability they had wished for her to have. To her, it was a compromise that she still held enough interest in to pursue as a career. Still, her hobbies remained things that both helped her vent and helped her likewise express herself. She stood apart from the ‘average joe’ in ways that kept her distant from many, and yet she still worked hard to get to know others where she was and would ultimately try to connect with them as best as she could. She picked up how to 'be' sociable, yet another skill to add to her belt, in the general sense. It was also in this vein that nothing would seem tostop her eventually finding and connecting with her future best friend about four years ago, however, in the form of a Chinese-American girl named Mei who by this point in time runs a successful asian-mexican fusion food truck in the same city Eliza was working in (set up often near where Eliza worked when they first met, eventually the two ran into each other and hit it off as friends from there).</sub>

Goals/Plans:

<sub>-Help the locals keep a good settlement running at first if she can (Note: At least until the Yayoi people migrate to Japan and change things up, she doesn’t know they will be arriving eventually though.)

-Roll with the changes in the long-haul (Note: She’ll try to integrate with the Yayoi people when they migrate over to Japan and drive some of the Jomon people out while intermarrying with others, basically being there for the formation of the base of what became “Japanese” culture originally.)

-Try to help shape the future for the better (Note: One person can’t totally change the fate of everything so mightily, at least not without taking up a strong leadership or other role perhaps over a long enough period of time/involvement with the powers that be, but she will certainly try to shape ideas like blacksmithing and medicine and maybe introduce ideas like ‘treating others like you want to be treated’ and such where she can, maybe try to introduce an idea or two in cooking from back home from American cooking and/or learn the local flavors to boot, and will very readily pitch in a hand and learn from the locals and work alongside them if need be to get in with the locals or build good relations with them without looking down on such. As her father once said: “You gotta’ work if you wanna’ eat, and sometimes eating with people you worked with can help you get to know them better!”)

-See if she runs across any other “Authors” (Note: Not the term she’d know to use, that’s just the OOC bit, but she’d be curious if any other ‘immortals’ exist like her in the world. If so, can she find them….or are they even out there in the first place? If so, would they be amicable to talk with her? Etc? She hasn’t a clue.)

-Learn cool new skills and such to pass the time (Note: Bowmaking? Hunting in primitive times and onwards? Creating muskets/rifles when the concepts eventually make it to Japan in over two thousand more years plus? Collecting a collection of more time-lasting jewelry and well-cared-for items for the long-term where she can viably do so? Oh yes, yes, and yes! Being immortal has changed her from being a normal human, or at least put more distance between her and them in a sense, but even so while she lives alongside them she wants to keep a history of things atop her own recollection of them personally. Gotta have things to do, ways to stay sane when you outlive everyone and everything you came to understand, etc, in the long term…something she will be coming to the conclusion of eventually, and this is the sort of direction she’ll end up going with it in a sense.

Who knows, maybe she’ll see enough things go the same way that she finds herself in the equivalent of 2026 USA of this new timeline for giggles and sees what that other her’s life is like. She has no idea what the long-term will bring.)</sub>

Why You Picked Your Location:

_{I decided on instead I simply threw her somewhere in the far east to see what happens! I thought it was an interesting if not slightly random choice.}

Character Motivations:

• Learning Interesting New Skills To Improve Herself Further (aka: Personal Improvement/Growth)
• Staying Alive/Surviving
• Finding Purpose
• Genuinely Making Things Better For Others

Playing Yourself or Custom Char:

_{Custom Character}

New Dawn of Civilizations

So, how are people's character sheets coming along?

@Theyra

@Theyra Should be done now! Finally. Fingers crossed, but naturally I will fix anything I need to of course.

Eliza

Name:

_{Eliza Marie Lee}

Gender:

_Female

Age:

₂₇

Appearance:

_{Eliza was born with fiery red hair as vibrant as it could seemingly naturally be, for what it was worth, with a personality in her youth that seemed just as vibrant. Her fair-skinned body, however, has never been much for the sun when the burning light of the sun comes into play. Even so, her piercing green eyes are something of note when looking at her generally soft and narrow-shaped face, standing out like ‘emeralds’ according to her mother many years ago. Yet while her body bears a natural hourglass-type shape and full chest, something that would seem to be an enviable thing to others, she never paid as much mind to it outside of having to find the right bras to wear. One can tell, however, that from her arms and legs that she had done a fair amount to build up muscle from exercise and other physical activities. Not the sort of muscle one might see on a bodybuilder, where size seems to be most obvious to the common person’s eyes, but the well-rounded sort of muscle that would be found on a very physically active person. This is especially notable with regards to her arms in particular, on the left upper arm of which she bears a somewhat long but not too wide scar of sorts gained during the process of practicing blacksmithing over the years.}

Personality:

_{A diligent hard-worker who learned to apply herself to things the 'practical way' (as she'd say it) from a young age, being especially driven when it comes to her own personal goals in life. A person who feels the very much regular human drive to and is able to generally seek to socialize with others and 'be included' or 'belong' to enough of an extent, and in part wishes to help others, and yet has stood apart from the 'average person' in her own nation and day and age in a number of ways that left her feeling distant otherwise. Someone who enjoys the process of learning new things that can benefit her own personal development, and yet at the same time whose sense of self-preservation can be....quite strong under the right circumstances. She is most often an 'action oriented' type person who won't hesitate to do something herself with her own two hands, under certain circumstances even preferring to do things herself, and yet who is likewise a sociable and relaxed type in other ways who isn't afraid to crack a smile even while hard at work or make a joke here and there. She does enjoy socializing with others to a good enough extent indeed, though she doesn't fully consider it a 'nessecity' all of the time due to being to some extent a proper introvert.}

Nationality:

_{United States}

Education:

_{Doctor of Phamacy (PharmD)}

Former Occupation:

_{Pharmacologist}

Skills:

• Pharmacology - While things such as problem solving and critical thinking and socializing and organizing one’s self and such things are components of her (now former) job, she basically researches, develops, and tests new drugs for potential use in the most basic sense. Finding out side effects and such, etc, also falls within this realm of skill for her.
• Blacksmithing - Is a skilled blacksmith not through talent, but frankly through her passion and work put into it. Has dug a good bit into the history of it and such as well, looked at stuff like how they made Wootz steel in India or such and sought to recreate it along the way, and other tidbits like that which she’s gleaned or picked up or curiously sought out over the years by chance while practicing this intensively as a hobby.
• Hunting/Woodland Knowledge - Albeit with modern guns or a compound bow, but she hunted with her father a good few times over the years when she was younger. Last went hunting with him about a year ago as of most recently. He’s also rather often tried to in the process point out how to be safe in the woods, things to avoid, etc, that come part and parcel with it. Not that this latter knowledge helps in any particular way when you are teleported to 2700 BC Japan and were living in the United States of America in 2026 beforehand. Good news is, she can gut a deer properly and wields a knife rather well at least!
• Cooking - She can cook in general, learning from both her mother (who tried to teach her something), and from Mei’ who taught her a few things to cook while they hung out with each other sometimes and shared a bit of knowledge with each other over the years.
• Modern Education (21st Century) - Has recieved an accelerated but full modern education in the public school system of her home nation/state, giving her some breadth of knowledge with school subjects such as English, Math, History (mostly US history), and Science (chemistry and biology) along the way. This includes classes she took in college, including both ones tied to her primary degree and additional basic-level elective credit classes including: Public Speaking, Sociology, Music Appreciation, and learning to speak Spanish.

What You Were Doing Last Before Falling Asleep:

_{Was hanging out with her best friend Mei at the latter’s place, had a couple of beers, cooked some food, talked about the week and Mei's boyfriend and rambled about Damascus steel, binged some new show on Netflix, and then crashed on the couches and fell asleep promptly thereafter.}

Where Did You Wake Up At:

_{Roughly near the settlement of “Nenbutsurin” on this linked map of Jomon-period settlements in ancient Japan: https://i.imgur.com/gh3KVhU.jpeg}

Background:

<sub>Eliza is someone who from a young age was seemingly blessed with a sound and conventionally beautiful form for the modern age, down in the depths of the good ol’ USA, with her father even nicknaming her ‘my little star’ simply for the way her little eyes seemed to twinkle when she was happy. Her mother, a feisty sort who had worked as a female firefighter prior to marrying and ‘learning that my own mother had the best, and hardest, job in the whole world’ in the woman’s own words, would take the last and youngest of her three children and would still try to ‘whip her into shape’ in the metaphorical sense all the same. With two older brothers, it seemed that Eliza would be fated to be the sole daughter of the family, though in practice she often hung out with her brothers and even some of their friends and learned to go hunting in the woods from her father after much (aka: she barely had to ask to get him on board) effort to convince him to do so. Yet as much as the young girl enjoyed working with her hands on something or another, whether it was food alongside her mother or goofing off in the nearby woods to their local subdivision with her brothers, something also became quite notable to those about her. It became more and more apparent that she bore something of an…incredibly good memory, one that would easily qualify as ‘photographic’ by its very nature. Indeed her ability to recall information and things she had seen and experienced in rather excruciating detail were something that made her stand out even more so in her youth, even in class, and which led her teachers to begin to excitedly push her proud parents to ‘get this potential genius on a good path’!

…But what began as trying to make her parents and teachers proud would begin to become something of a burden to the girl. She went bit by bit from being ‘Eliza’ to ‘the prodigy kid we compared to Nikola Tesla’, and things began to go from being ‘fun to learn and exciting’ to more and more so ‘is this what I want’ and ‘what do I do if I fail everyone’s expectations of me’ alike. By the time she got to college at the age of thirteen, she felt she was falling behind even having a social life and began to dig in her heels as new surging teenage hormones and the rapidly mounting stress in her life from a more rapid education path began to grind back against her. She needed more. She needed an outlet. Something. Something to do with her hands that let her take the crap inside of her head and let it out. Thus it was in this time period that, late one night browsing the internet, she found a video on…blacksmithing? It seemed like just hammering metal to her mother, but it felt like something she was curious about at the very least enough so to ask her parents about it after a few weeks of watching videos and such about it sometime before she turned fourteen years old.

Her parents at first would raise an eyebrow at her wishing to see it in action, but hoping she might find some kind of way to better help her work out ‘that youthful energy’ they all the same took her to see the nearest blacksmith they could try to find. From there, the story wrote itself. The feeling of a hammer in her hands, heating the metal just right, learning how to get a feel for the forge, it spoke to something inside of her that she hadn’t realized yet. She had found, of all things, a hobby just for herself that she had an actual passion for for once in her life. She didn’t compare to the youngest of geniuses in the world, though her parents would work to get her on some kind of medical track in college, and yet her hobby was something she could pour more energy into outside of other physical activities like exercise and swimming or even running for her local high school track team as she’d do after some negotiations. Even so, her physician (a kindly sort who cared for her) would see a new and worrying rise in stress despite this new hobby and would eventually push for her to get therapy as she was sent on a collision course right into medical school. In turn, the subsequent therapist would second just how badly she was beginning to do under the mountain of things placed upon her, such that it brought her own proud but beforehand somewhat blinded parents to a grinding halt of sorts by the reality.

They still wanted her to take a medical track, but at the same time they wanted her alive all the same. Some of the pressure laid upon her backed off, she chose a route of pharmacology rather than surgery, and in turn her therapist likewise sought to help her learn to manage such pressures in the future due to how common mental health struggles had become in the modern medical workplace. And so, much like a cracking and worn piece of metal, Eliza and her family worked to help reforge her stronger and better moving forward. Not something that would come overnight, no, but something that would have to come more long term. One day, one thing, one hurdle at a time.

By the time she turned 27 years old, Eliza was now both a realized and working pharmacologist and was likewise one of the youngest to have become one and begun practicing as one. To her parents it was the financial stability they had wished for her to have. To her, it was a compromise that she still held enough interest in to pursue as a career. Still, her hobbies remained things that both helped her vent and helped her likewise express herself. She stood apart from the ‘average joe’ in ways that kept her distant from many, and yet she still worked hard to get to know others where she was and would ultimately try to connect with them as best as she could. She picked up how to 'be' sociable, yet another skill to add to her belt, in the general sense. It was also in this vein that nothing would seem tostop her eventually finding and connecting with her future best friend about four years ago, however, in the form of a Chinese-American girl named Mei who by this point in time runs a successful asian-mexican fusion food truck in the same city Eliza was working in (set up often near where Eliza worked when they first met, eventually the two ran into each other and hit it off as friends from there).</sub>

Goals/Plans:

<sub>-Help the locals keep a good settlement running at first if she can (Note: At least until the Yayoi people migrate to Japan and change things up, she doesn’t know they will be arriving eventually though.)

-Roll with the changes in the long-haul (Note: She’ll try to integrate with the Yayoi people when they migrate over to Japan and drive some of the Jomon people out while intermarrying with others, basically being there for the formation of the base of what became “Japanese” culture originally.)

-Try to help shape the future for the better (Note: One person can’t totally change the fate of everything so mightily, at least not without taking up a strong leadership or other role perhaps over a long enough period of time/involvement with the powers that be, but she will certainly try to shape ideas like blacksmithing and medicine and maybe introduce ideas like ‘treating others like you want to be treated’ and such where she can, maybe try to introduce an idea or two in cooking from back home from American cooking and/or learn the local flavors to boot, and will very readily pitch in a hand and learn from the locals and work alongside them if need be to get in with the locals or build good relations with them without looking down on such. As her father once said: “You gotta’ work if you wanna’ eat, and sometimes eating with people you worked with can help you get to know them better!”)

-See if she runs across any other “Authors” (Note: Not the term she’d know to use, that’s just the OOC bit, but she’d be curious if any other ‘immortals’ exist like her in the world. If so, can she find them….or are they even out there in the first place? If so, would they be amicable to talk with her? Etc? She hasn’t a clue.)

-Learn cool new skills and such to pass the time (Note: Bowmaking? Hunting in primitive times and onwards? Creating muskets/rifles when the concepts eventually make it to Japan in over two thousand more years plus? Collecting a collection of more time-lasting jewelry and well-cared-for items for the long-term where she can viably do so? Oh yes, yes, and yes! Being immortal has changed her from being a normal human, or at least put more distance between her and them in a sense, but even so while she lives alongside them she wants to keep a history of things atop her own recollection of them personally. Gotta have things to do, ways to stay sane when you outlive everyone and everything you came to understand, etc, in the long term…something she will be coming to the conclusion of eventually, and this is the sort of direction she’ll end up going with it in a sense.

Who knows, maybe she’ll see enough things go the same way that she finds herself in the equivalent of 2026 USA of this new timeline for giggles and sees what that other her’s life is like. She has no idea what the long-term will bring.)</sub>

Why You Picked Your Location:

_{I decided on instead I simply threw her somewhere in the far east to see what happens! I thought it was an interesting if not slightly random choice.}

Character Motivations:

• Learning Interesting New Skills To Improve Herself Further (aka: Personal Improvement/Growth)
• Staying Alive/Surviving
• Finding Purpose
• Genuinely Making Things Better For Others

Playing Yourself or Custom Char:

_{Custom Character}

New Dawn of Civilizations

I can definitely write bigger single posts, but if someone needs to do a few smaller posts I'm not against anyone doing that. (Whatever works!)

And yeah, writing for up to five years IC and then ten year skips between turns sounds good to me.

New Dawn of Civilizations

@Theyra Since Dpmoc has eyes on Mesopotamia, I am thinking to land in Ancient Crete....with the Minoans!

New Dawn of Civilizations

I will curiously submit my interest now. Yes. :O

Pokemon Singularity

Clarissa Ryte

Route 4, Evig

“Clarissa, are you alright?” He asked quietly.

The sore psychic would give a silent 'thumbs up' gesutre to Valerian's quiet inquiry about her current state of affairs. Even so, Jotaro, Sir Lopsalot, and the brave little trashbag had finally finished helping her sit up, and for what it was worth she would look over to them with a rather small smile temporarily appearing for a flash of a moment as she ruffled each of their heads with a free hand. Not that the Igglybuff hadn't laughed at the scene first to her recollection, but all the same he'd still come to help in the end at least. Yet by the time she pulled herself up to stand, and took the offered hand by Nils with a thankful nod, Amelia had presented herself while a Mimikyu held the now seemingly a bit confused little troublemaker in its entrapping and shadowy grip.

"I'm sorry about Phantump. I know he meant no harm but I think scaring you like that while you were recovering from your earlier fall. I hope you can forgive him."

Said Phantump, still trapped, looked between everyone, clearly confused on what it had done wrong. No one got hurt so all should be fine, right?

The wince the girl made at Valerian's words, however, wasn't fully lost on her either. Even so, the psychic let Vivian talk first, mostly as she'd been the primary target, and aside from accepting the smaller girl's apology the clumsy-seeming girl did offer to go with them to the ruins. Indeed, that was something she'd been hoping to bring up as well! So it seemed those interests aligned, even as Amelia piped in with her own interest as well to boot as her face (thankfully) brightened back up before Clarissa's very eyes on the topic.

"Agreed. We should find a good place to camp for the night. I'd like to go to the ruins as well, perhaps even discover and catch some new Pokemon there as well if we can."

She'd then somewhat awkwardly tried to put a reassuring hand on Amelia's shoulder, at least for a moment for the girl to notice, before they left for the ruins proper it would seem.

Ruins, Route 4, Evig

Dilapidated clay buildings worn down by time covered in green moss loomed over them. Some of them barely had any walls or even a ceiling and some were just a singular column either standing or broken with a jagged end pointing up to the sky like spears. There was a stillness to them, a reminder that whatever this was long ago, was now a fragment of a time long forgotten by history and the people of this region. A stillness that came from a lack of life.

Well, that was not entirely true.

As they walked through the ruins, they would see bits of walls with strange markings pop off from the wall and float before a shadowy figure emerged from the slab. They would look at them curiously before meandering to haunt these ruins though some of them took a special interest in Amelia, floating around her with great focus.Dilapidated clay buildings worn down by time covered in green moss loomed over them. Some of them barely had any walls or even a ceiling and some were just a singular column either standing or broken with a jagged end pointing up to the sky like spears. There was a stillness to them, a reminder that whatever this was long ago, was now a fragment of a time long forgotten by history and the people of this region. A stillness that came from a lack of life.

Clarissa almost drug behind the group near the back as they moved along, letting her hands trace gently over the worn edges of time-worn walls, her fingers dance over the feeling of spear-like columns as she traced them up toward the skies above, and her eyes soak in the moss-covered clay corners that had once housed presumably the ancient people of Evig. Even her powers seemed to gently wake up somewhat in a place such as this, the dance of life and the movement of Pokemon hidden from view at first but becoming more and more present as they moved along. Especially so for Amelia, it seemed, who seemed to draw the attention of ghostly Pokemon that their Rotom Dexes would call out the entries of upon first sighting.

Yet with it all in mind, the psychic felt a thrum of....history from this place that spoke to something deeper inside of herself. Something familiar, and yet also totally alien to her at the same time. A bit sad and yet more deeply fascinating at the same time. She couldn't quite put a finger on it all, nor find a word that encapsulated the sensations running through her body and mind as they moved along. Even the eventual stop where Connor and Sabine were, and their comments about Frankie, were secondary to the psychic's primary focus on the ruins around them.

Even more so...

As they continued to explore the ruins though she would enter what she would assume to be the middle and there would find a strange sight. Various walls towering over some of the ruined buildings with strange glyphs and runes she had never seen before even in her own history books though perhaps what was odder were the walls themselves. They were black with an impossible smoothness and sheen, reflecting daylight like the most perfect mirrors.

If the weathered clay could tell stories, then what kind of stories would these ancient walls and floors and such tell them?

Of lives and lights, and eyes that shined with hope like gleaming gem?

Would they sing of lives and tales and families far gone, and of things left forgotten under the light of new dawn?

Would they whisper of footsteps taken in trepidation at the start of new journeys, or last breaths taken and of tender mercies?

And if the sheen of these mirror-like engravings were lone' left to tell, then what did they hold of times and things that once befell?

Yet before the mirror's sheen of the ancient wall, here at the center of it all, the psychic felt her breath catch in her throat for but a moment and would stop before her own reflection and the captured light of this lovely day in the impossibly smooth contours of the ancient stone. Or, well, she presumed it was some kind of impossibly-wrought stone on first glance at least. Even so, the seemingly inhuman quality of its held a sort of innate beauty of its own perhaps.

Still, Clarissa felt she'd let her fascination run its course before trying to catch some Pokemon. She was interested in a Yamask and a Baltoy at least, though if any others appeared she hoped to see them while they were they. Er, if they could. Not just for the Pokedex either, really, but...well, she was a bit curious what might live in an ancient place like this. Even Sir Lopsalot and Jotaro, who each sat on one of her shoulders, and Scrapper, as he walked along beside her in this case, seemed at least a bit curious about things around them in the meantime to boot for the moment being.

Then with a gentle and careful touch, the psychic would reach out to touch the mirrored wall with her right hand, to use her fingers to gently trace glyph and rune and relaxing her powers just a little to see if she could get any sort of 'feeling' from the wall or surrounding area. Just a small exertion of her powers, nothing obvious or visible she'd hope, though Clarissa had no clue if the wandering Pokemon like Baltoy or Yamask would pick up on it as they had done with Amelia's own seemingly innate psychic abilities. In any case, she wasn't thinking too hard on the matter aside from Kapoc's warning in the back of her mind to avoid revealing things if she could.

[Clarissa feels fascinated with the ruins as they go along; she is also touching and tracing the runes and glyphs on the Mirrored Wall wioth her right hand fingers while letting her powers reach out a little bit to get a feel of the wall and the area as she does so. She is trying not to be obvious or show her hand, as Kapoc warned her of, but has no idea if local Pokemon or such might react to it all (or the wall for that matter)]

@Remram@Shazamrock@Joshua Tamashii@Azure Bubbles@Goggy

Current Pokemon/Money/Items

Current/Active Team Pokemon:

• Sir Lopsalot - Buneary - Male - Level 7 - Full HP
• Scrapper - Trubbish - Male - Level 6 - Full HP
• Jotaro - Igglybuff (Evig Form) - Male - Level 5 - Full HP
• Pyrite - Roggenrola - Male - Level 5 - Full HP

Pokedollars: 500

Items:

• Camping Gear/An Extra Change of Clothes
• Good Rod
• Potion x3
• Pokeballs x7
• Antidote x2

Important Info/Pictures/Videos Thus Far

• Pictures Of The Strange Mural From Hidden Cavern (Under the Grand Glory City Sewers) -

  And now everything had come to a still. It was funny, after an intense battle the only thing that was left was the peaceful sound of silence. As they went to pick up their Pokeballs, there was something that they had not noticed that under any other circumstances they should have been aware of as soon as they entered this chamber were not for the fact that they were on a rescue mission: there was a mural of the region of Evig painted on one of the walls though it was incomplete, the entire southern region and parts the western landmass were simply not there
  
  There were several things odd about it, but what was odd were the symbols on them: a flower near Florasong, a sundial near Starbor, and a crown in the Jormun Trench.
  
  Yes, many things to ponder about...

• Video of Clarissa, Nils, the punk kid, and Dudley the Detective leaving the Pokemon Den in Hidden Cavern and leaving back to the Grand Glory Sewers, ending on a shot of the hole gown down from the sewers to the Hidden Cavern.
• Clarissa's First Video Of The Hidden Cavern

  

  
  
  An ethereal glow hung in air literally lighting the enclosed space of red rock with a blueish hue. There was an energy about it, something that resonated through the air though what it was was hard to say. It was a vast network of tunnels, an eerily quiet space where even the slightest sound bounced off the walls. There was no doubt that this place had not been touched by human hands, if it was even known by the inhabitants of the city above. A fragment of another time from long ago, isolated and forgotten.
  
  However, those who found themselves in this strange network of tunnels would quickly find that they were not alone. As expected of a place located deep underground, there were a litany of Pokemon that made their homes here. Armored little creatures scuttled around, looking for iron ore and other bits of metallic minerals they can get their mouths on.

  
  
  Going for her Rotom Phone, Clarissa would have it film the appearaance of the place and the Pokemon she could see there, including a proper look back at the tunnel that had led her there. Then she had the camera turn to herself for a moment, then, speaking clearly for the camera and gesturing to the lighting and features.
  
  "This cave system seems to sit underneath the Grand Glory Sewers, which might explain the presence of Aron down here eating at the pipework in the sewers above. I came down here through a tunnel the Pokemon here dug up at an angle into the sewer system, with them seeking more food I believe, while seeking whatever Pokemon is making the crying noise people have heard down here before. I don't know how far the tunnels go, or if there are more connections to the sewers, but....this place is...beautiful, I believe, in its own way."
  
  Untouched by human hands, thriving with life of its own, and yet part of her felt enthralled to simply look about the underground cavern of sorts.
  
  Still, before she ended the video, Clarissa looked back at the camera of her Rotom Phone again.
  
  "And Nils, if you are watching this, I'm sending this to let you know it's seeminglly safe to come down as well if you wish. But we might need to eventually go back for some potions and other supplies if this place goes deep enough. I'm heading deeper in to explore in the meantime. I'll try to keep in touch."

Pokemon Singularity

Clarissa Ryte

Route 4, Evig

Clarissa introduced herself to him awkwardly. "Sup, call me Frankie." He responded calmly, understanding that this was certainly a weird looking situation.

The Great Stick Poker Of 2025

Well, he seemed calm enough about the situation. Not that it was anything but an odd one to say the least. But why had he been poking her with a stick though? Really? Then again perhaps-

The girl in question emits a small groan from the dirt, "Ouugh... My head hurts... Why do I always trip..." she mutters as she was slowly helped off the ground, her eyes blurry as she recovered from the tumble she had took, looking at the gathered group of people before glancing at Clarissa, "Uh... Sorry, where- Oh, right! Thanks, yeah, I'm f-"

The Walking Disaster & Scare Victim

Ah! The psychic let out a small sigh of relief. Clarissa was glad the girl seemed to have enough of her senses about her, for the time being, but at the same time the psychic felt something from her powers...as if it was moving closer to them? A presence that is. Well that seemed odd enough. A similar feeling came from the old ruins she could see afar, but right here with them? Maybe-

TUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Frightening And Most Tumpy One Of Them All

It took her but glancing up at the right moment (as old instincts admittedly kicked in)for the mischevious Phantump to appear, Amelia's it would seem, out of nowhere before shouting at the top of its little ethereal lungs in the once dirt-bound girl's ear. Consequently the shout would ring in the unfortunate psychic's ears as well, even as her grip on Vivian suddenly grew much tighter at the sudden attempt by the poor startled girl to rip herself free of her hands. It was, however, enough to yank the psychic forward with Vivian for a moment, at least before the grip she had on the other girl was ultimately broken (as it would be), and once detached from Vivian cause the former Orre girl to trip in turn over one of Vivian's feet as the other girl herself fell back over the once again comically-placed Wooper.

And then suddenly a number of things seemed to happen all at once to boot.

As two of Vivian's Pokemon erupted out of their Pokeballs to defend their trainer, one more proactively than the other, Clarissa hurtled into the ground with all the weight of her things on her back to help carry her. As the sudden new Scraggy entering the fray moved to block Atlas' punch, before the re-downed girl recalled him back again in kind, Sir Lopsalot would attempt to move into place to catch his falling trainer without a second thought...but it was too late. As her body somewhat twisted sideways due to the weight of her things on her back, the same weight that made stopping herself after Vivian broke free a bit less feasible than she'd have liked, the psychic would promptly hit the ground with a decently loud enough 'thud' as her little Buneary barely avoided getting turned into a small but adorable pancake.

In turn, two of Clarissa's Pokeballs would open on their own as two Pokemon shimmered into existence about her while Sir Lopsalot finished running over to where her head now lied after she'd ultimately fallen down on her left side. The first was something that looked like a literal sentient walking trashbag, but overall was just a little guy, a smaller fella' of a Pokemon who seemed to panic just a touch at the situation while also eyeing the Phantump back while his two little fists were held up as if he was...willing to fight despite himself? Huh. Meanwhile, the second Pokemon that emerged looked like a peculiar orange Igglybuff with feathers tinted with ember-like colors on its head instead of the trademark 'puff' of their Kantonian cousins. He would appear standing on the side of the downed Clarissa's backpack suitcase in kind, looking down to the side at her, at the downed Vivian, and then let out a tiny giggle before looking back up at the Phantump as if it could barely contain its amusement and laughter.

"Bffff...Bu...BUFF! Buff....iggly iggly iggly. Buff."

It eventually let out a notable laugh of its own at the scene, before seeming to make a critique to it in whatever language Pokemon species had been made to speak in for Arceus' sake. It was enough, however, to get Sir Lopsalot to look at him and put his tiny hands on his hips. Then as the two of them began to chat, the little walking trash bag with arms would also chirp in.

"Bun! Bun bun!"

"Buff buff. Iggly!"

"Bish? Trub trub trub trub trub. Bish bish."

"Buff? Buff buff, iggly."

"Bun."

"Trub!"

"Buuuuuufffff....buff."

Whatever conversation had just gone down, the odd Igglybuff would glance back at the psychic's face for a few silent moments before he let out his own little sigh of exasperation and Sir Lopsalot crossed his arms. The Igglybuff would then get down from Clarissa, albeit not before sticking his tongue out at Sir Lopsalot for what it was worth, and try to help the other two try to sit Clarissa back up at the very least. Or...well, they were trying to do so as best as they could, bless their little hearts, at the very least.

"Hmmpidhsthmm...."

A small murmuring of incomprehensible grumbling barely came from Clarissa's lips as she let her Pokemon try to help her sit up again, albeit she was slow to frankly join them as she eventually would try to sit up again (albeit slowly enough after the impact). Wasn't her first fall, and it surely wasn't going to be her last either, in the span of her lifetime. But in her mind, at least, she'd managed to hold back an outburst from her powers or voice alike at the last second, albeit that had come at the cost of not paying enough attention to catching herself in the fall.

Er, not that the sudden sideways turn of her fall had made it very viable either to catch herself, but it is what it was in any case. Yet the soreness emanating from the side of her head, left hip, and left arm for the moment being anyways as far as she could tell were benign enough. This, however, came second...even as her eyes looked at her right ankle and a small sigh of actual relief escaped as it didn't seemed to feel or be twisted as she rolled her right foot a little to check it out.

'Good'

@Remram@Shazamrock@Joshua Tamashii@Azure Bubbles@Goggy

Current Pokemon/Money/Items

Current/Active Team Pokemon:

• Sir Lopsalot - Buneary - Male - Level 7 - Full HP
• Scrapper - Trubbish - Male - Level 6 - Full HP
• Jotaro - Igglybuff (Evig Form) - Male - Level 5 - Full HP
• Pyrite - Roggenrola - Male - Level 5 - Full HP

Pokedollars: 500

Items:

• Camping Gear/An Extra Change of Clothes
• Good Rod
• Potion x3
• Pokeballs x7
• Antidote x2

Important Info/Pictures/Videos Thus Far

• Pictures Of The Strange Mural From Hidden Cavern (Under the Grand Glory City Sewers) -

  And now everything had come to a still. It was funny, after an intense battle the only thing that was left was the peaceful sound of silence. As they went to pick up their Pokeballs, there was something that they had not noticed that under any other circumstances they should have been aware of as soon as they entered this chamber were not for the fact that they were on a rescue mission: there was a mural of the region of Evig painted on one of the walls though it was incomplete, the entire southern region and parts the western landmass were simply not there
  
  There were several things odd about it, but what was odd were the symbols on them: a flower near Florasong, a sundial near Starbor, and a crown in the Jormun Trench.
  
  Yes, many things to ponder about...

• Video of Clarissa, Nils, the punk kid, and Dudley the Detective leaving the Pokemon Den in Hidden Cavern and leaving back to the Grand Glory Sewers, ending on a shot of the hole gown down from the sewers to the Hidden Cavern.
• Clarissa's First Video Of The Hidden Cavern

  

  
  
  An ethereal glow hung in air literally lighting the enclosed space of red rock with a blueish hue. There was an energy about it, something that resonated through the air though what it was was hard to say. It was a vast network of tunnels, an eerily quiet space where even the slightest sound bounced off the walls. There was no doubt that this place had not been touched by human hands, if it was even known by the inhabitants of the city above. A fragment of another time from long ago, isolated and forgotten.
  
  However, those who found themselves in this strange network of tunnels would quickly find that they were not alone. As expected of a place located deep underground, there were a litany of Pokemon that made their homes here. Armored little creatures scuttled around, looking for iron ore and other bits of metallic minerals they can get their mouths on.

  
  
  Going for her Rotom Phone, Clarissa would have it film the appearaance of the place and the Pokemon she could see there, including a proper look back at the tunnel that had led her there. Then she had the camera turn to herself for a moment, then, speaking clearly for the camera and gesturing to the lighting and features.
  
  "This cave system seems to sit underneath the Grand Glory Sewers, which might explain the presence of Aron down here eating at the pipework in the sewers above. I came down here through a tunnel the Pokemon here dug up at an angle into the sewer system, with them seeking more food I believe, while seeking whatever Pokemon is making the crying noise people have heard down here before. I don't know how far the tunnels go, or if there are more connections to the sewers, but....this place is...beautiful, I believe, in its own way."
  
  Untouched by human hands, thriving with life of its own, and yet part of her felt enthralled to simply look about the underground cavern of sorts.
  
  Still, before she ended the video, Clarissa looked back at the camera of her Rotom Phone again.
  
  "And Nils, if you are watching this, I'm sending this to let you know it's seeminglly safe to come down as well if you wish. But we might need to eventually go back for some potions and other supplies if this place goes deep enough. I'm heading deeper in to explore in the meantime. I'll try to keep in touch."

Pokemon Singularity

Clarissa Ryte

Lobby, Pokemon Center, Grand Glory City

Clarissa would be able to easily pick up on the palpable fear that came off the child who needed a couple of seconds to calm down, her grip on Mimikyu tightening until the Ghost let out a cry of discomfort. Once she was calm enough, Amelia turned towards the older trainers, her gaze on the as she spoke in a quiet voice.
"Um... I... I don't care where we go but um... would it be... would it be okay if we avoid Florasong? Please? I... I can't... I can't go there yet."

It didn't take psychic powers to see Amelia somewhat mildly freak out a bit at the mere mention of the town of Florasong...but why? Was it her hometown? Had something bad happened to her there? In any case she seemed to be trying to calm down, if nothing else, and feeling a pang of empathy that nearly made her wince Clarissa would turn to the younger girl and get on one knee down to her level. She would attempt to put some kind of reassuring hand on the smaller girl's shoulder as well, even if a bit awkwardly from the looks of it on her own end of things at least, before glancing over to the two boys for a moment (trying to to catch their eyes) and then looking back at Amelia again. At the same time, the new trainer was trying to keep herself in her usual more stoic state of appearance...not the best synergy, she figued, but her tone was at least calm as she'd move on to speak to the other girl.

"We can avoid Florasong for the time being. That won't be a problem."

She hoped. She really hoped. Because reflexively she was saying this to try to comfort Amelia. But Nils didn't seem to be the brash sort to throw such anxieties of another aside, at least, and Valerian-...er, she had no idea for the time being. Better to not let him handle sensitive situations from the sounds of it, though, given what she'd heard of him so far. Would need to see how he was on the road moving forward otherwise to get a better idea of him.

Route 4, Evig

Well, the visit to the Pokemart had been an...interesting one at the very least. Maybe. Or it had the potential to be her worst possible decision making time period as of yet in her entire life. Because before her trip she'd been prepared, ready, set to start, gone over ideas of budgets, and her father had exhorted her to 'not worry too much about it' wile her mother had been a bit more supportive (albeit encouraging her to relax a bit too for that matter). Yet at the Pokemart she had gone and...w-well...after some thinking....had s-splurged a little on something out of the blue?

...

...

...

The psychic walked along with the others onto Route 4, somewhat a little gloomier in the way she carried herself, her suitcase of supplies and such sitting on her back like a backpack now as they moved along. A hand was holding each shoulder-slung strap of the suitcase she carried as she walked along, yet on the outside of her suitcase now sat something new that had been strapped to the right side of it. Sticking up a bit like a mundane flagpole, all shiny and new and such like, was a brand new Good Rod she had purchased at the Pokemart. A fishing rod. A fishing rod...for someone who had only been fishing aboout as many times as she had fingers on one hand in the past with her father at Gateon Port a few times.

But the better the rod, she'd read up prior to becoming a trainer, the more and better the Pokemon it could catch...right? Right?! So it'd be good to, say, do a bit of fishing in the rivers and lakes and such along the way to find even more Pokemen then, yeah?

So technically yes, it had been an utter and total impulse buy, sure, leaving her with only 2000P left to her name and nearly causing her to panic in the shop over the matter. Almost. She'd frozen up a little bit on the fly, really, as the reality had hit her at the very least. Yet 1500P of that had then been at least enough for her to buy three Potions (900P), two Antidotes (200P), and two more Pokeballs (400P) before she'd almost run out of money altogether. She at least was replenishing her Potions, and in case of poisonous types on the way she'd bought Antidotes as a precaution, and she was only three Pokeballs down from where she'd started her journey thus far as well at least. But still...ugh! It was so...so stupidly frustrating! B-But the price was outrageous anyways, right? It was 5000P for a blasted fishing rod of all things?! At least the last 500P she'd managdd to keep ahold of for now...

"Bun. Bun bun."

Sir Lopsalot would somewhat consolingly pat her head with a gentle touch from where he sat on her right shoulder now, at least, as they all walked along. The rest of her Pokemon, then, sat in their Pokeballs neatly and properly in usual fashion. Though she had promised Amelia to let her see her new Pokemon, so perhaps once they made it somewhere else or settled in somewhere eventually for the night that'd be a good time to show her the others.

Arriving at the start of Route 4, though, the psychic let out a small sigh and brought her eyes up to look about the place. Get a lay of the land. The road was one thing, even if they couldn't use it, and the footpath seemed a fair bit more rough yet adventerous in comparison. It was a simple enough a path forward, then, it seemed, despite how much greenery and such was around them. To her it was almost alien to some extent, to see so much green and lively wildlife around. It felt almost familiar to Agate Village in a sense due to the amount of green here, though that place had its own...oh, what was the word? Mood? Scene? Energy to it?

There would certainly be a lot to see along the way, though, depending on what direction they took mooving forward along Route 4. Good. That was good. Clarissa would then take out her Pokedex to see if any info was availible about the Route and its Pokemon thus far, hopingto get an idea of things as it rattled off some nearby Pokemon to her as well, before the glint of something old and stone in the daylight caught her eye after a minute or two. Said eye-catching glint then caught her full attention sooner than later in turn, before she would in kind put up her Rotom dex in an inner coat pocket once more.

"Hmm. Could we perhaps explore those ruins over there first?" she said, her tone picking up again to its normal calm as she looked around at the others, pointing in the direction of the ruins, "If that is amenable enough for you-...all......eh?"

"...Bun?"

Also, for some reason there was a black-haired girl (@Goggy) face first on the ground with a Wooper also face first on the ground. A boy was crouched down poking her with a stick.

Why was someone face down in the dirt and being poked with a stick? Actually, scratch that, why was the boy poking her with a stick in the first place? And why was a Wooper there in the same ground-placed-face position to boot?

Walking over without another word, then, she hoped the rest of the group would maybe catch up as she approached the downed girl and Pokemon. The psychic would first try to help up the peculiar little Wooper on the ground, Sir Lopsalot hopping off her shoulder to assist her in doing so with care, before turning her attention to the boy with the stick and breifly looking at him for a moment. She'd then silently turn her attention to the downed black-haired girl (@Goggy) and trying to help her up now as well. Er, at least as best as she could if nothing else...and unless the girl panicked while she did so or something to push her away while trying to help her at least.

"Ah, hello there by the way. I'm Clarissa," she'd say, somewhat awkwardly trying to introduce herself to the boy as she moved to help the girl and would turn her attention to her in turn, "And are you ok, miss?"

(([UPDATED 12/5/25] Note For GM: Clarissa began withh 7000P, spent 5000P on a Good Rod, 900P on three Potions, 200P on two Antidotes, and then her last 400P on two Pokeballs. Thus her remaining cash is 500P.))

@Remram@Shazamrock@Joshua Tamashii@Azure Bubbles@Goggy

Current Pokemon/Money/Items

Current/Active Team Pokemon:

• Sir Lopsalot - Buneary - Male - Level 7 - Full HP
• Scrapper - Trubbish - Male - Level 6 - Full HP
• Jotaro - Igglybuff (Evig Form) - Male - Level 5 - Full HP
• Pyrite - Roggenrola - Male - Level 5 - Full HP

Pokedollars: 500

Items:

• Camping Gear/An Extra Change of Clothes
• Good Rod
• Potion x3
• Pokeballs x7
• Antidote x2

Important Info/Pictures/Videos Thus Far

• Pictures Of The Strange Mural From Hidden Cavern (Under the Grand Glory City Sewers) -

  And now everything had come to a still. It was funny, after an intense battle the only thing that was left was the peaceful sound of silence. As they went to pick up their Pokeballs, there was something that they had not noticed that under any other circumstances they should have been aware of as soon as they entered this chamber were not for the fact that they were on a rescue mission: there was a mural of the region of Evig painted on one of the walls though it was incomplete, the entire southern region and parts the western landmass were simply not there
  
  There were several things odd about it, but what was odd were the symbols on them: a flower near Florasong, a sundial near Starbor, and a crown in the Jormun Trench.
  
  Yes, many things to ponder about...

• Video of Clarissa, Nils, the punk kid, and Dudley the Detective leaving the Pokemon Den in Hidden Cavern and leaving back to the Grand Glory Sewers, ending on a shot of the hole gown down from the sewers to the Hidden Cavern.
• Clarissa's First Video Of The Hidden Cavern

  

  
  
  An ethereal glow hung in air literally lighting the enclosed space of red rock with a blueish hue. There was an energy about it, something that resonated through the air though what it was was hard to say. It was a vast network of tunnels, an eerily quiet space where even the slightest sound bounced off the walls. There was no doubt that this place had not been touched by human hands, if it was even known by the inhabitants of the city above. A fragment of another time from long ago, isolated and forgotten.
  
  However, those who found themselves in this strange network of tunnels would quickly find that they were not alone. As expected of a place located deep underground, there were a litany of Pokemon that made their homes here. Armored little creatures scuttled around, looking for iron ore and other bits of metallic minerals they can get their mouths on.

  
  
  Going for her Rotom Phone, Clarissa would have it film the appearaance of the place and the Pokemon she could see there, including a proper look back at the tunnel that had led her there. Then she had the camera turn to herself for a moment, then, speaking clearly for the camera and gesturing to the lighting and features.
  
  "This cave system seems to sit underneath the Grand Glory Sewers, which might explain the presence of Aron down here eating at the pipework in the sewers above. I came down here through a tunnel the Pokemon here dug up at an angle into the sewer system, with them seeking more food I believe, while seeking whatever Pokemon is making the crying noise people have heard down here before. I don't know how far the tunnels go, or if there are more connections to the sewers, but....this place is...beautiful, I believe, in its own way."
  
  Untouched by human hands, thriving with life of its own, and yet part of her felt enthralled to simply look about the underground cavern of sorts.
  
  Still, before she ended the video, Clarissa looked back at the camera of her Rotom Phone again.
  
  "And Nils, if you are watching this, I'm sending this to let you know it's seeminglly safe to come down as well if you wish. But we might need to eventually go back for some potions and other supplies if this place goes deep enough. I'm heading deeper in to explore in the meantime. I'll try to keep in touch."