3rd Quest [Video, after completing Heads or Tails]

[bladeofnymeia]

[It's finally a sunny, warm day, hot but not terribly humid, and perfect for laying out bolts of felt to dry after May's deluge of rain. Or, well, to let them dry after being cleaned to ensure there's no mold or mildew or anything gross trying to grow on the fabric Firoza has worked so hard to make. And as she sits in the middle of this fabric drying in the sun, her mind wanders towards her efforts with Laios and Emmett to locate a missing Pokemon. The eerie feeling, the thought that came unbidden, the state that Zweilous was found in...

She has to talk about this. She has to express this. And when she comes in over the Grumpearls, you can get that sense of concern and confusion settling around her, making the sunny day a bit dimmer as a result.]

I don't recall Zweilous having gone missing before our arrival here. Has this Pokemon wandered off before?

[She hums, little Nidoran brow furrowed. It's important to note that she's finally started to keep her bandana pulled down again, and her right cheek (her right) has a wispy scar trailing across it, like tendrils of flame licking out. It's all healed, it doesn't look grotesque, but wow it sure is there!]

There's just...a feeling I had. "No, no, not again"...and I couldn't shake how familiar it was, to know you are missing a name and face, but you cannot put it together. Though how it can be familiar I'm not sure...

[Tap tap tap goes a paw, impatient as she thinks.]

Have any of you felt something similar, from a mission? Or am I overthinking this?

Comments

[truthdecided]

[Well, that's worrisome.

A strong wave of confusion ripples through the pearl, while Akechi attempts to make sense of all the disparate threads.]

There's Vivillon to consider as well. I believe multiple teams had to retrieve the Silver Powder. It's not quite the same, but it does warrant some careful observation...

Something is awry here. The fog may be a part of it, but regardless, we may want to take it up with our guild leaders.

[outbounds]

Hmm. Yes. Also, Vivillon thinking it should have been easy and a short walk after. Wondering why we took so long.

[ When it was, in fact, rrridiculously far into the forest when Emmet and Siffrin went, and also it was raining and miserable to boot. If Emmet had any less of a customer service face he might have been slightly annoyed. ]

[truthdecided]

Then there are matters like Orthworm-san mistaking medication as its own child, and Persian mistaking Purrloin for a Meowth...

[He tries to cross his wings like a pair of arms, which may look slightly silly.]

Perception, cognition... There's a common thread with the anomalies.

[outbounds]

[ Emmet doesn't tend to use the 'video' function of the pearls since he doesn't much see the point in sharing his own sight, so his side remains audio only despite the silly mental image.

But if he had, Akechi would have seen the perspective tilt. ]

I think you are now trying to connect everything too much. Looking for evidence when you have already decided on the conclusion— you will find plenty of evidence that supports it.

I do not think the distortions in the landscape and layout in at least some parts of the forest are perception-based only. Linking Vivillon's situation to Orthworm and Persian to Zweilous and Phantump— [ pinning it all on perception and cognition, that is, ] that might be too hasty.

[truthdecided]

Oh, make no mistake. It's not the terrain I consider similar. Rather, the fact that Vivillon repeatedly dropped the same item and made the same request... It's rather cyclical in the same way the missing Pokémon were.

[He shrugs, however, because it is still tenuous at best.]

I suppose the better question is if Vivillon's perception of the forest was altered, or if there's something intrinsic to bug types that allows them safer passage, in which case it would be entirely separated from the greater cognitive anomalies.

[outbounds]

Another option. Not about Vivillon doing the same thing over and over again but the other thing. Could be that the forest itself is just ... moving around.

[ There's a flicker of a stray thought, the image of an odd... house? in the mountains somewhere that doesn't seem to relate to the conversation at hand coming briefly to mind, but. ]

Or it doesn't connect to itself in the way we'd expect? [ A different forest, but more like it was read about in a brochure or book somewhere. ] Or the nature of space and also maybe time is just broken there. Though it is true that time-based anomalies might be harder to distinguish from just perceptual differences without more thorough investigation.

[ This is getting a little further away from the nature of whatever seems to be going on with Zweilous and Phantump, though. ]