(As a side note, all credit for the concept of the RP goes to Illan. Please direct yourselves to this thread to sign up.)
The air was unusually cold for the spring time in Livehold--the trees were slower to bud, the flowers late to bloom in the slight nip that gave the breeze a small bite. Some of the more superstitious would have called it an omen of sorts, while those of a more scientific persuasion might have considered the weather merely a side-effect of a long winter; whatever the case might have been, it seemed by and far that the citizens of the proud city-state were too busy running about their day-to-day errands or drowning their sorrows in the seedier areas of the Red Sector to care about a prolonged chill. The rhythm of the city never stopped; it never slept, it never tired, it never ceased to be the centre of hustle and bustle that its citizens expected it to be. During the days, it was filled with the laughter of children playing in the street, the calls of traders trying to sell their wares, or the voices of explorers sharing their stories with the community at large. When the evenings came, the Red Sector was the life and blood of the city; countless souls gathered in the cultural hubs for poetry or music, and many more looked to escape their sorrows in the brothels, bars, and fighting rings of the underground community that fed and festered under the skin of the prosperous township.
For many, however, what drew them to the shining jewel of the continent was not the hubbub of the market places, or the squalor of the night life; it was the spirit of adventure and the desire to explore. The Exploration Guild of Livehold was renowned across the continent for producing top notch explorers, and its countless expeditions and discoveries throughout the city's history warrant the praise. Many residents of the city were explorers at one point in their lives; some stayed with the guild their entire lives, some moved on to become merchants or traders, and some simply retired and faded from the collective memory of society; whatever their fate may have been, many in the city are tied to the guild in one form or another, and that is undeniable...
Books lay scattered around a small house in between the Blue and Gold sectors; they covered the end tables, the chairs, and the single bookcase was packed to the brim on its shelves with manuscripts and even more were stacked around it. Upon initial inspection, one would think that whoever owned the home was a hoarder of books--a kleptomaniac who had managed to avoid being banned from the local library--however, if one took a closer look, they would notice that the vast majority of the books all had one name listed as the author. There were a few miscellaneous reference books here and there--an old report from a fellow guild mate, or a heavily revised collection of medicinal and kitchen uses for berries and herbs might be one of the few differentiating materials in the massive collection--but the vast majority of them were written by one Pokemon: Grace the Glaceon. The thousands and thousands of pages containing maps, diagrams, and volumes of information were all written by a single explorer, and currently she was working on another for submission to the Guild.
Her quill moved briskly across the page, writing down every single detail she could recall about the dungeon she had investigated weeks prior. Most of the report was finished--she had written a good chunk of it almost immediately after she had gotten back, and some of it was even transcribed before she returned from the dungeon--but there were always things that came up and kept her from finishing her works in one sitting: writers' block, another job arriving in the mail, or, the most common of the interruptions, her own inability to pace herself. There were many days where the only thing she could do was write--countless occasions had seen her asleep at her desk, and on two occasions she had to be taken into emergency care because she had eschewed her own bodily needs to ensure a report was in on time. Tonight, however, the quill stopped; an unsatisfied expression sat on the Glaceon's face for a moment before an exhausted sigh left her mouth.
Although it was impossible to tell the time inside the house, she knew it was late. She was reluctant to leave her work as is, but she knew that she also needed some air; she had been in the house all day trying to finish the report, and as it stood it was more than enough to satisfy even the most scrutinizing of examiners. Resting her quill back in the ink well, she put on her scarf, fumbled her way through the maze of books and manuscripts, and left out the door. The outside of the house was nothing special to look at: a white, wooden structure with light blue on the trim and an arched roof, with an attic window facing the street; quaint, but the Glaceon liked it well enough. After making sure the door was locked, Grace began walking down the street...
