Interrobang‽/Asterism⁂
Adventure Team Big Bang
Keep 1st Floor, Discovery Town.
Affected RP'ers: N/A? (if you count the guild stepping in here, then everyone I guess, but I'm not sure.)

A lot happened at once. Before they could open the letter, they were randomly teleported to the town square by Pokemon God, who then proved to actually be the exact opposite of Pokemon God by announcing that no-one could log off and no-one could leave and morphing the town into a post-apocalyptic setting. Then he left.

Everyone took this as the sign that this was the time to start panicking, or almost everyone. Even the NPCs were panicking, almost just as hard-Interrobang saw some serious fear as they struggled to comprehend why the hell Pokemon God suddenly wanted everyone dead, or what he actually just said which seemed to defy every ounce of internal logic they had, as well as how everything suddenly took a dive into the ruinous apocalypse. And it was a dive, because it wasn't staying that way; the sky was clearing back to blue slow and steady, and for the most part damages were actually pretty superficial. The Keep wasn't even touched, and the blood pools were reverting back to plain water. Anyone paying attention would realize that the whole change was just for show, intimidation, proof of the sincerity of the power of the developer, or 'developer,' as Interrobang thought of him (and doubtless more). But it was the threat of death and never being able to go home again-or worse, the implicit threat that everyone would die regardless, due to being vegetative state they were in-that had everyone utterly terrified. There was no way to weasel around that much. That Arceus proved that if they wanted them dead, they were pretty much dead, without killing a soul.

To be frank, Interrobang's total level of being intimidated by the scenery change was near to zero. The lazy moron didn't even change the Keep at all, it was just a show, and really, the best way to win then was to make sure only the most experienced forged ahead and then everyone could copy their example-even the plot he was copying had workarounds. He was panicking, of course, but it was internal. Not voiced, but nevertheless expressed. Expressed mostly by slapping his sister for shouting along with the crowd, and then making expressive demands to leave. He couldn't handle shouting. He couldn't handle serious loud noises. Loud noises, he hated loud noises, it was too loud, too loud! Asterism complied, knowing his brother's peeves, some sisterly concern overwhelming her fear-and barely. Tears were in her eyes-actual tears! It was too much. Asterism moved Interrobang to the Keep, the Guild, mostly for quiet, mostly to comprehend what was going on.

They barely crossed the threshold of the Keep before the Guild Pokemon came down upon them, demanding answers. In fact, the Guild Pokemon-the Guildmasters. Pyroli looked a cross between enraged and concerned. "What happened out there, Big Bang?"

"Something in town," Asterism said, trying to keep a vestige of calm with tears in her eyes. "Something teleported us there, the town got kind of messed up, and-"

"Everyone's being threatened with death by something pretending to be Arceus, or actually Arceus," Interrobang said. "It looked like Arceus, at least."

"... Is it odd that I was hoping you'd say I was actually having hallucinations then? The implications of that statement are infinitely worse. Does this have to do with all the questions about logging out everyone has been getting? I have no clue what you're going on about-"

"Pyroli," Raiju interrupted. "Let's not dig into this. We'll ask in time. We need them to calm down everyone, first, before this breaks out into a riot."

The other two nodded, and Pyroli turned to Cadence. "Cadence, today has been rough, but I'll need you to keep everyone calm and quell any arguments. This is a special circumstance. We need everyone calm and to get all the facts sorted out. Legends vowing death upon our guild members is... I... Augh, I've had nightmares about that kind of thing before but never in my life-"

"Pyroli," Raiju said. "Focus."

"Right," Pyroli said, rushing outside.

"OK, Big Bang... Today has been one of the worst in my life. I can barely count how many teams we just registered in this place and now-if you're to be believed, and honestly you're very believable, we are now being targeted by random divine wrath. This is a lot to swallow... Did he say anything else?"

"It's very metaphysical but there's one way to get out, if it's not just some dumb trap. I don't know where it is, other than I know that no-one can reach it unless they do something significantly long and complicated to get at it, probably consisting of things that wouldn't look like the right steps if I would have to describe it to you," Interrobang said. "It would probably give someone an existential crisis. I just want to be away from the noise."

"... I'll take your word for it, hun," Cadence said, looking incredulous but sympathetic. "I'll call up Karmen, we'll probably need something delicious to at least ease the pain... In the meanwhile, uh, can you try to calm everyone down out there?"

"Interrobang does really badly with loud noises," Asterism said. "He'll probably freak out if he's made to stay there."

"Gotcha, hun. I'll see about getting the other guild members in to calm everyone down, fast. Once we've gotten some calm restored and fix everything up, we can sort out the going-ons and the plan of action for everyone. And that will include you. This is a threat to the whole town..."

The Guild was suddenly hustle and bustle as quite a few teams-NPC teams-poured out in mass. The response-Interrobang nor Asterism quite believed how they were acting. Their disbelief, their empathy, their movement to calm a riot... They weren't sure if it was perfectly real, but it felt real.

Interrobang tapped his foot against the ground. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Half second of delay. Proof that it was not real. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. It wasn't real, none of it, not a single bit.

Not a single bit was real except the death.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Can you stop tapping?" Asterism said, trying to keep her mild irritance from spiraling into screaming.

"It keeps me calm," Interrobang said. "... We were going to look at the job, weren't we?" Interrobang added, as an afterthought.

"Why are we even considering a job at a time like this?" Asterism asked, now a bit exasperated.

"We don't have to accept, just look-oh. That is... Oooohohoh." Interrobang said, suddenly almost forgetting the risk of death.

"...You've got to be kidding me," Asterism said, who wasn't suddenly forgetting.

"...Oh. OK, job is straightforwards. Retrieval of a missing item down in B35 of a dungeon called the 'Relic Abyss.' Our client remains anonymous. Our mission reward is also anonymous... B35... IF that's the bottom floor that's pretty far down, and if it isn't we are really going to have our work cut out for us, if we go for it," Interrobang said. "This job is... A long ways off. We also don't know where this is..."

"Interrobang, there's more important things to be thinking about-"

"Yes, Asterism, there are. Not like we could go into this dungeon anyways... But... Hrm. We don't have anything else to do then, and from what we heard, the Guild isn't going to take this lying down... They'll probably just put things on high alert and let us do jobs as normal... Which means, in context, that we could just, you know. Further this along," Interrobang said.

"We don't live in a vaccum. Pokemon is a big thing. Nintendo isn't going to let this slide. They're going to get enough tech people to bust us out of here," Asterism said.

"Jor-Asterism, let's put it this way-"

"No, none of your weird shenanigans! It's stupid to risk your life for a trinket! We're just going to stay put and-"

"Jorline-"

"-not so much as even think about listening to that psycho's demands-"

"Jorline! If he isn't pleased, do you think he may want to 'encourage' people?" Interrobang said, grumpy.

Asterism fluttered her wings nervously, but then, she sighed. "... That's horrible... We shouldn't be in this situation at all... Seriously, not worth the-"

"Now where's your sense of adventure?" Interrobang said. That caught attention, and while Interrobang wasn't a social animal or such, he knew it would get stares if she was seriously reconsidering all of this.

Certainly, such fearless explorers and adventurers wouldn't fear something like death, would they? For the NPCs... It was a part of life. They didn't get respawns. Asterism would have protested but just looked around at the keep, its last, slowest members trudging forwards-and most likely the 'newest' NPCs by that, who gave her an odd look.

Asterism sighed. "... That is a low blow," she said.

"Look, not saying we can't play safe and all. That's smart. What's dumb is thinking that if we don't at least make an effort to get ourselves out of this cage-play along-then he may start getting really angry at us, so we might as well at least put our necks out a little bit. For everyone else. Plus, think of it this way; it would be fun to play the hero, and if we could figure a way to get everyone out..."

"...Interrobang, you have your head in the clouds there and I know it. But I guess we don't really have a choice in the matter... Uuugh. Fine. Fine! I'll go along. But first, we're going to see what the Guild does about this.

"I suppose. They won't let us saunter off at a time like this," Interrobang said.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

"You're just going to keep doing that forever aren't you." Asterism said, stifling dissapointment, irritation, fear, and a great deal of things.

Interrobang rolled his eyes in response.