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DECEMBER EVENT PT 2
DECEMBER EVENT PT 2
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→ 12/15 - 12/31 A Persona December...
- The year is now winding down, but it only gets busier throughout town as people hustle about paying off debts, mending relationships, and cleaning the clutter out of their homes to have a fresh start to the new year. The staff at the hospital is especially busy rearranging some of the units, seeing as the foundation to the hospital seems to have cracked a day or two before, the entire building at a slight angle where one side has sunk into the ground, with blame placed on the freezing ice breaking apart the ground below the hospital and deeming parts of it unsafe. Rows and rows of potted plants surround the hospital like a miniature garden, while around the marketplace, small potted plants are placed on either side of each shop entrance ward off evil spirits and keep them from entering. In the neighborhoods, white paper strips tied across straw ropes get hung over each house's front door for the same purpose— for the houses without such traditional New Year's decorations, like the Black Cat house and the neighboring clubhouse, the townspeople offer to help supply and put up the traditional decorations so evil spirits will be kept out of the town, and good tidings will be invited in for all in the new year.
It's too bad they do nothing to ward off the Shadows that crawl out of the dungeons at night, the snow and the ice unable to deter the small black blobs that squeeze under doors and invade the buildings during Lockdown. Perhaps the weather is to blame, getting increasingly colder towards the end of the year, but people start to fall ill until most of the townspeople sport masks over their noses and mouths to prevent catching colds. On the 21st, the public bathhouse celebrates the winter solstice by offering a greatly discounted entrance fee, enticing people to enjoy the customary yuzu baths with cut citrus floating in the hot water to draw in good luck and good health, but even this tradition does little for what might be the worst flu season to have hit the town in years. The symptoms are largely the same: it starts with chills and a fever, then heavy sweating and insomnia that makes it impossible to fall asleep, coupled with the deep aches and pains that seem to seep right down into the bones. People are left weak and tired, and while some are lucky to not get any sicker, others take a turn for the worse and lose consciousness completely, rushed over to the hospital where tests are being done to determine what sort of illness this is and what the most effective treatment may be. There is no effective treatment. The people who get sick aren't recovering. Those Persona users who are already in ego death catch the illness easily and do not have the strength to fight it off, falling unconscious and prompting the townspeople taking care of them to send them to the hospital to be better looked after and supported— the last of their days spent as pain-free as possible.
Christmas Eve comes and goes, largely a couple's holiday spent quietly with loved ones, but it's only quiet due to the number of people who had to be hospitalized. Crispy fried chicken and fluffy Christmas sponge cakes topped with strawberries and cream go on sale on Christmas day, but the shelves remain full with the lack of people well enough to celebrate. Fear and suspicion run rampant, talk circulating around town that the gods are angry and they must be appeased, while a smaller but more vocal number of people begin to speak out about disaster having been striking the town almost every month no matter how much they've been praying to the gods. Traditional decorations get torn down in fits of anger and frustration, spiteful townspeople scorning the gods for doing nothing to protect the town, while others try to pacify them, wanting to keep the peace and warning the hellions that these are the exact actions that cause the gods to forsake the town in the first place. There's talk about how the bad weather and waves of illnesses started in the summer, fingers pointed at the strangers that had moved into town since then, and eyes seem to be on the Persona users as they walk through town: quick, furtive glances at times, blatant staring at others. Children are more brazen, tugging at their parents' hands and pointing out the weirdo standing on the roadside talking to cats, or the girl with the large firearm strapped to her back, or the large orange dragon they saw flying towards town from the mountains. The adults shush the children, telling them it's rude to point and that they shouldn't get involved with foreigners, pulling them away from the people who have been living amongst them all these months, now deemed outsiders.
→ 12/28 Happy birthday, Toki
- On the 28th, an earthquake rolls across town early in the evening, lasting five minutes with aftershocks being felt throughout the night. When it first hits, the quake takes the power down with it, the entire town plunging into darkness for a solid hour, the emergency generator at the hospital trying to kick in but a fuse blows and catches fire, the explosion small but located in the basement that shakes the building hard enough that it starts collapsing even further, the staff rushing all the patients out of the hospital before the entire building crumbles and burns to the ground. For the next hour, the only light that can be seen is the flames engulfing the hospital building until they finally die down come midnight. Right when the clock strikes twelve, an aftershock hits and causes the fissure at the bottom of the lake to widen, the ice cracking and the water level dropping by several meters as mud and rock get shaken loose and turn the crystal clear water a dark, turbid brown. It triggers an avalanche in the mountains, the peaks opposite the castle on the other side of town crumbling and smothering the forest beneath with rock and snow. Electricians work hard through the night to get the power restored, the power finally coming back on with the rising sun at dawn to shine light on the destruction.
Over the next few days, the townspeople work hard cleaning up around town, inspecting buildings for damages, and trying to get a clinic up and running in the small community center for hospital patients in need of treatment. There weren't many patients to begin with, but many are now unconscious, suffering the chills and pains of what now clearly isn't the flu. Groups of townspeople scavenge the ruins of the hospital for medicine and medical equipment they're able to salvage, while others make their way through the forest to scour the mountainside for herbal medicine. While they're careful to avoid the landslide, rumour starts to circulate amongst the elderly townspeople of a shrine up in the mountains from centuries ago, before an earthquake had hit and buried the passage up to the shrine, leaving it abandoned once travel was determined to be too hazardous. Investigating the landslide, it's soon realized that the rock has fallen to reveal the start of a path carved out of the mountainside, the previous blockade having been knocked loose by the recent earthquake. If the boulders are cleared away and the path is made safe enough to travel, it may be possible to reach the shrine and restore it, but efforts cannot be spared at the moment. The town comes first. The lives and safety of the people come first.
Some of the townspeople continue to pray to the gods, while others lose faith and can only rely on themselves, their knowledge and their labour. No matter how hard they work, resources are scarce and no cure to the illness can be found. The first person to fall unconscious closes their eyes and dies on the 29th. Slipping away from ego death, Kokichi Ouma takes his last breath on the 30th. Ryoji Mochizuki passes away on the 31st. Neither of them ever wakes up again, not here, and not at home.
At midnight on the 31st, the deep, rich tone of the bell slowly ringing at the shrine in the forest can be heard all throughout town, welcoming everybody into the new year.
→ 1/1- 1/2 Best wishes in the coming year
- Without a proper shrine in Hirajiro, many of the townspeople visit the town hall on New Year's day, paying respects at a kamidana located inside, standing in front of this private, miniature shrine with bowed heads, thanking the gods for seeing them through another year and praying that the next year will bring good tidings to the town that so desperately needs it. They welcome family members who have travelled all this way in order to visit, all claiming to be from different towns and cities that do not exist in this world where there is only one town, but this time, murmurs in the background voice confusion. Children ask their parents why they never go out to see their family from out of town, or how come they never see airplanes fly overhead or trains run through the mountains, or how do they have seafood if there's no ocean? They are quickly shushed and told not to ask silly questions, but dissatisfaction and resentment build amongst the youth, who are always told to keep their heads down and noses out of people's business, to not talk to strangers and to not play in the woods. Though wary now of the Persona users who frequent the path, several children are seen sneaking into the forest at times, teenagers and young adults soon to follow, and by the second day of the new year, some of the townspeople can be seen staring at the castle, marvelling at its existence, and making their way up the steps to the shrine, all while wondering to themselves how long these places have been here, right under their noses.
The number of people who are aware of the shrine in the forest barely number several dozen out of the hundreds of other townspeople, but they sweep the snow off the steps and clean up the shrine, burning incense and leaving offerings to this new god with no name, asking it to help save the town now that they can no longer trust the old gods to do so. At the center of the shrine grounds, a young man stands by a large metal box, asking people to return their old omamoris to be burnt and to buy a new one for the new year, gesturing to a small table next to him filled with omamoris of different colours, a black crow stitched in each corner and gold embroidery denoting what each charm grants blessings for: good health, wealth, relationships, etc. Alongside the omamoris, another box rests on the same table that contains omikujis, with a small tree standing behind the table for people to tie the paper fortune to if they draw one with bad luck.
Every single paper fortune reads bad luck.
For these two days, Minato and Souji can be seen at the shrine wearing men's kimono, standing off to the side and talking quietly with one another, feeding the crows, greeting the Persona users, and handing them New Year's envelope of money if they haven't stopped by to pick them up yet. Have they made their New Year's resolutions yet? If they're willing to share, both Attendants are curious about hearing them; said out loud, one becomes accountable for such promises, and if they are able to keep their resolutions... well. The first month is always the hardest. The Attendants just give a small tired smile and say that they will revisit the resolutions upon completing the final dungeon. Make them good ones.
→ MOD NOTES
- ⬥ Starting from this point forward, permadeath will be an option for characters dropped from the game, alongside the ego death state. For players with previously dropped characters who would like them to permanently dead, please contact the mods so an official list may be kept on the taken page. Note that characters who undergo permadeath may not be apped back into the game, and ICly will not be sent home. More information about the change in death mechanics will be revealed as the plot progresses.
⬥ The shrine in the mountains will be accessible on 1/3 when the new dungeon log goes up. More information will be given at that time.
⬥ At the shrine in the forest, characters have the option of returning their Persona omamori and purchasing a new one. Please respond to the toplevel below with their decision. Responses are due by 1/3, and more information about the consequences will be given at that time.
⬥ Characters also have the option of making a New Year's resolution and telling the Attendants by reporting it to the toplevel below. What will the mods do with these? Haha! It's a mystery.
⬥ As of 12/11, the music on the Velvet Room has changed in hopes that the characters stop fucking up in 2020. Ganba, friends.
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[-Which means it's time for the actual difficult subject.]
Um... About earlier this month...
[Hey Akira remember when your personality totally flipped.]
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...Yeah?
[All of a sudden, Akira is guarded again. He was caught by surprise, but he scrambles to push something back up.]
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...Are you feeling better now? You were... really talkative.
[To put it mildly.]
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I feel better.
[Maybe if he stonewalls this conversation enough, he can leave.]
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I'm not going to ask about it. And if anyone else does, I can run interference.
[He kind of regrets that he wasn't really able to when it happened.]
I just wanted to make sure you were okay now.
[Because that was A Lot to have dropped on people, especially if you didn't mean to, and he's pretty sure Akira is way more private about those things.]
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I... wish it hadn't happened. But it did.
[Sasuke... Sasuke's not going to start anything though, right? Not like Kido did? Akira just can't see him as the kind of person who would mock anyone about something like that. Even as a lighthearted joke.]
Some of it was true, some of it wasn't. [The birdfucking was not true.] But when I talked to you about events in the past, those were all... actually true.
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...Sorry. [It's so inadequate. But he has no idea what else to say.] The stuff with the... charge. [He doesn't want to say convict.]
It shouldn't have happened to someone like you.
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It shouldn't have happened to anyone. That's the point, Sasuke.
[It was so easy for Shido to just decide to ruin this random kid's life. If he hadn't gotten caught up in the frankly one-in-a-million bullshit that he did in Tokyo, he would have it even worse. And now Akira's started thinking about it again, and he's getting worked up.]
It shouldn't have happened to anyone, but it does, every day. Individuals and families and cities and countries will keep taking the abuse. People like that will keep hurting others forever, just because they can, and we've built all these systems that keep them in power. Keep them untouchable. In the bunker, it was the same. In Hirajiro, it's still the same, because of all these goddamn bird-people. --And at least back in Tokyo the Personas were enough to make them stop!
no subject
There is one part that catches his attention, though.]
You could stop them with Personas...?
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[Whereas here, they just kind of... exist.]
We were able to reach straight into people's minds. Change their personalities. All of the walls and defenses they put up in the real world, it didn't matter inside the Metaverse, because if you scared them enough their mental defenses got sloppy. And that's when you go in and steal their heart, so they collapse under the guilt of what they did.
...It's not that easy here.
[That's a pretty big sticking point for Akira, it seems.]
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What do you mean by their "heart?"
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[You can remove lots of other things too, with varying results up to and including death, but the Thieves very specifically focused on the shitty parts.]
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Sort of like the spirit.
[This makes sense to him.]
But... here, all we can do is fight creatures like the Daitengu to the death.
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[And that's what Akira hates the most.]
There has to be a third option somewhere, I just... I can't find it.
[He doesn't have the energy to try and find it (and fail) anymore, but he doesn't want to admit that to himself.]
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[So far, they were just told to fight the birds, so they did.]
We just don't know enough about this fucking place, and there's no way to find out!
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[Sasuke, come on.]
Yes, it was! And it worked!
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Sorry. It was probably a stupid question.
But you didn't have guides telling you how to do that?
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[He rolls his eyes.]
But our guides now are basically useless because they're working for the enemy and their hands are tied, so we've got to do it all ourselves! So if there's some other way we've got to find it!
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[Whatever they were contracted to do, whether it's helpful or harmful to the Persona-users, the Attendants are not doing it.]
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I guess- you're right. We don't know enough, and it's hard to find any way to get more information. So right now, we don't have any choice but to rely on the Attendants.
Do you think... we need to find a way to sever them from the Kotengu?
[...This may be in part because he just doesn't want to abandon the Attendants, though.]
no subject
[If Akira was just thinking about talking to the Attendants before, he's definitely going to do it now.]
Like you said. They're our only option.
no subject
[Tricky thing, especially when it's easy enough for them to cite lack of memories.]
I'll see if I can find anything out.