JANUARY DUNGEON

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JANUARY DUNGEON

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→ 1/12 Lockdown: The Final Dungeon

When preparations are complete and the team is ready to tackle the dungeons, both Attendants can be found at the castle, with Minato sitting on the armrest of the throne with a plain short sword balanced on his knees, and Souji standing to the side with several backpacks full of food, water, and blankets at his feet. "Last chance to change your mind and join the Champions of the Just," Minato pipes up from where he's sitting. "They've got trail mix." The team he's heading, incidentally, he named the Legion of the Dead and there is no trail mix or any other supplies provided by Minato, because Souji is a responsible leader who comes prepared, and Minato just doesn't care.

A several day hiking trip up the mountains for the sake of team bonding was considered but ultimately vetoed, so Souji simply opens a portal up from the forest shrine's torii to the mountain shrine's, and from there, it's only a short trek through the drifting snow to reach the honden. At the stroke of midnight, each Attendant places their hand flat on their door, the surface glowing bright blue and turning translucent: a one-way barrier swallowing each person whole as they pass through the portals.



Legion of the Dead It's a straight ten-foot drop once you step through the ofuda door in the castle, with nothing to break your fall but hard stone— or Minato if you happen to be the next person after him. It's a large stone chamber, with two large indentations on the far wall the size and appearance of doors, but neither open when touched or attacked. The only other thing of note in the room is a pedestal at the center with three omamoris slowing burning in a weak flame, one with Rio's name and arcana, another with Kido's, and the last with Yamato's, the same ones that were thrown away at the forest shrine on New Years as a statement of rejection of the Kotengu and his lent powers. Really, it's just Rio and Yamato's, though, because Kido had two omamoris to start with and doesn't need this second one. But with nothing else in the room, the first choice is a time-limited one: will you save the omamoris from the fire so Rio and Yamato can have it to summon their Personas, or will you respect their decision and allow the omamoris to burn to ashes? Depending on your choice, one of two doors will open.

Champions of the Just Entering the honden brings the group to a large stone chamber reminiscent of the forest shrine dungeon: a circular hub with a dozen arches along the perimeter, clearly meant to entice the impatient to spread themselves thin. Instead of multiple Shadow ghosts appearing from the ether to ambush the group, however, there is only one: a semitransparent ghostly form of a young boy huddled against the archway on the opposite side of where everybody had entered. He looks to be around seven, with very little distinguishing features other than pale eyes staring at the group. The moment anybody takes a step closer to him, calls out to him, or tries to attack, he starts in fear and turns to run through the archway— anybody who gives chase is met with a barrier; in fact, every other archway is blocked by the same invisible barrier, cutting their potential routes in half. The rest of the room is empty. There should be a way to get the barriers to drop in one of the five available passageways... Will you proceed all together, or divide and conquer?

There is no Velvet Room within the dungeons, and using a traesto gem or goho-m will only bring you to the beginning of the dungeon in either main hub, not outside. Falling unconscious within the dungeons doesn't bring you anywhere to be revived either; all it means is that your unconscious body lies there to rot or get eaten by Shadows until somebody hopefully saves you. So look after one another in the dungeons, and don't be afraid to rely on your Attendants. Souji will keep everybody safe.

→ MOD NOTES

⬥ Both dungeons are team-based and require some coordination with other members of their team, with some decisions involving the entire team (e.g. Legion of the Dead's first decision regarding the omamoris). The teams will make their way through several rooms to find the exit, either split up or all together, with each room containing a battle, puzzle, decision, or another obstacle. The team as a whole will bear the consequences of the actions taken, so please give each choice careful consideration. As actions may affect subsequent rooms, new rooms will become available after the previous are cleared, rather than all the information given at one time.
⬥ A toplevel for the boss will go up once a team ICly reaches the boss' chamber, and overall, this deadline is the end of the month to avoid IC consequences.

Comments

[defragment]

[ 45 lowers her gun for good measure, but isn't letting go of it. You go do your thing, Akira. ]

[reveilation]

[ Better than 45 gunning him down, but the moment Akira moves towards him with the clear indication of approaching, the boy's shoulders jolt— he looks away from Akira to throw a fearful glance towards Souji, before he turns and darts through the archway into the darkness off the hall beyond it. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[Akira doesn't follow. He waits for the kid to disappear, and only then does he mutter,]

Shit.

[tesa]

Hey, I'm always serious! Champions here we come!!

[Iris dosen't posess the hindsight needed for this kind of situation. She looks up at 45 and then back at the young boy.]


He doesn't look that mean. We might be okay if we talk this out.

[But then it's too late.]

Um, what now?

[defragment]

[ 45 looks over her shoulder. That boy was certainly having a specific expression at one of them and if her calculations are right, he was looking at Souji.

... She faces forward again. ]

Let's proceed.

[tesa]

[Here is Iris, sprinting full speed ahead into the wall. Look.
She thinks it'll work if they take the same direction as the boy so it's an assumption she makes.

It's not very long until she falls into the floor at maximum force.]

Ouch.

[defragment]

[ ...............

You know what. 45 isn't even going to bother scolding Iris this time. When she said "proceed", she didn't mean bull charge right into the middle of enemy territory alone.

Either way, it looks like coast is clear for the most part and she wouldn't have batted an eye if a laser suddenly came down and fried someone. Thanks for the potential sacrifice, Iris.

Anyway, 45 looks around to see if there are invisible walls anywhere else. The doors must be there for a reason. ]

Some of the routes are blocked on this side.

[ She points to the ones in her half of the place. ]

[reveilation]

[ Kido rushes forward to help Iris up, before placing a hand on the barrier and frowning, remembering how the shrine dungeon also had barriers set up until they defeated enough Shadows to drop them. ]

Just like the other dungeon. [ She looks from 45's half of the room to the other half. ] Are they all like this? Because there's nothing here to kill besides...

[ You know. Each other. Which we can also try, if y'all want. ]

[toybombs]

[She put the sticker on, because let's just get this over with. Much like Itsuki, she's also carrying a gun, keeping it pointed away from others as she moves.]

...Let's check them all, then. [And before anyone gets any ideas:] We should move together in a group in case it turns out there's something nastier than a barrier waiting for us.

[tesa]

Thanks Kido. I'll try to be more cautious. Moving as a group sounds like a good idea.

[She pulls herself up together. Iris comes from a series that's like dangan ronpa. Murdering each other is just wow, notto dis again. She will pass on unnecessary bloodshed. ]

For the record I wouldn't recommend running blindly ahead. It hurts.

[defragment]

[ It sure would be great to put her dummies in action, except they don't work during Lockdown. 45 looks over the group after coming back from one of the free archways. ]

The faster we do this, the earlier we get this over with. It's not like we have anything to go off of when choosing one of the archways over the others, so we can go to that one.

[ She points to the direction that's closest available path to the one the boy ran off to. ]

If there are any objections, speak now. If not, let's get a move on.

[tarotcards]

Stick close, everyone. I'll be here for healing and back-up.

[ Souji sticks to the rear end of the group, letting the Persona users take charge. After all, this is their journey. He's just here to assist so he helps 45 usher everyone into the first room. It's a plain one with old wooden floors and walls, lit by seven candles on the floor. Once the last person enters, the door slams shut behind them and the room falls into complete darkness. Seven loud and heavy consecutive strikes cause the floor to shake violently, potentially causing some to fall, before they suddenly stop. The room remains in darkness so Souji summons regular Izanagi, using and containing Zio within its hand to provide a bit of light. The candles have been destroyed and there are... ]

[ ... two of each person. ]

[ Mixed in with everyone, they looked exactly the same as the originals. They have the same clothes, mannerisms, items, and even Personas. They look just as confused and surprised to see a copy of themselves. Even Souji has his own doppelganger and he opens his mouth to try and say something but nothing comes out. He scrunches his face and tries to speak once more, but he remains silent. From the moment the room stopped shaking, everyone's sense of speech has been removed. Trying to leave the room from the door that everyone entered from is fruitless. It's locked. There is no other way out. ]

[ What should you do? ]

[reveilation]

[ The quake knocks Kido onto the floor, and she's dazed upon sitting up again and jumping onto her feet to stare at Souji. She almost lets her guard down and takes comfort in the light, when she spots the second Souji standing right there and Kido's hand goes for the gun holstered on her belt, pointing it at Souji himself.

That zio in his hand? That better not be an attack, mister. Her hands shake whenever they're pointed at a person instead of a Shadow, but she is prepared to shoot before he zaps everybody—- it's that moment that her doppleganger steps forward to shout silently at her face, trying to wrestle the gun out of her hand and gesture at both Soujis with the other. ]

[toybombs]

[Two gunshots ring out as both Rios immediately attempt to shoot each other in the head, prevented only by the fact that they were also both moving to dodge at the same time. They both move their backpacks in front of them, because it's practically an armor of its own - given it's full of explosives.

So.

Yeah, this is going to be fun.]

[defragment]

[ This is a problem.

If Akira, Kido, and Souji summon their (strongest) Personas, they're done for. Luckily, she has no problem that within than a second of acknowledging that the doppelgangers exist, 45 raises her gun to perform headshots on the doppelgangers right away with her gun converting her bullets to almighty type. Kill the hosts before they can summon their Personas--45 has no problem with that and all doppelgangers who have the Enduring Soul passive gets another special headshot. Meanwhile, she dodges bullets flying from her own doppelganger at her. ]

[reveilation]

[ Kido starts when her doppleganger gets hit right in the side of the head twice, one after the other, but all that does is prompt her to summon her Persona. Kido is... really annoying to have to kill, because null phys renders bullets useless, and it's going to take a lot of almighty damage to completely take her down. 45 isn't going to be able to kill her with just the gun, and with Kido/Nekogami being evenly matched against the doppleganger, she runs to her Attendant and aggressively shakes his arm, pointing at her doppleganger, and then Akira's doppleganger.

Maybe he's good at translating. Something like "Souji! Kill the ones Itsuki's marked!" eg with blood, if the stickers are too small to see "We'll take yours down at the end!"

Souji is their strongest above all, so they should all concentrate on getting rid of the small fry before the stronger dopplegangers can kill the weaker originals off. After that, as a whole, they can figure out how to deal with Souji's. Kido's plan is to go strength in numbers here, ganging up on the enemy one at a time instead of matching off. ]

[defragment]

[ 45 is unfortunately too busy elsewhere to pay attention to Kido's charades. She goes at her own doppelganger while Malphas goes to help others out by either taking them to safety or covering for them with Cosmic Flares. 45 has many faces, so she's even able to fool her own doppelganger. Can't trust anybody, even yourself, apparently. She destroys the omamori in her copy's sleeve before the copy can summon her own Malphas and steals some valuable items from her before she slams two magatamas down at her own copy, frying her digimind with two shots of severe electrical damage. Fun shit.

Rio and 45's doppelgangers are now down. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[We just got done with this, and Akira mostly just looks annoyed.]

[His doppelganger takes the headshot, but doesn't appear to be too fazed by it. Akira concludes immediately that it hasn't got Mara or Raoul, because that would have blocked the bullet and blasted him to smithereens respectively, but those two are arguably the least of their worries. Lucifer will just be a disgusting powerhouse, and Sandalphon... Sandalphon will keep healing the other two, the stronger ones. And he can always switch.]

[Akira 2 doesn't summon anyone right now, though, because it's not too concerned with wasting its Samarecarm on Rio or 45. Instead, it moves closer to Souji 2 and Kido 2.]

[Akira himself readies Lucifer in the back of his mind. The Persona manifests behind him; he knows that Kido 2 is going to null any attempts at gunshots or stabs. Akira 2 won't have much of a defense against Almighty attacks except switching to Lucifer and hoping for the best. And Souji 2... he has no idea what that guy's capable of.]

[There's a sound, echoing around the chamber, like a choir of angels dying in unison.]

[tesa]

[Iris isn't much of a combatant to begin with. She's a dancer, a singer and an artist. Whatever's going on now is just beyond her. Still, Iris trusts her team mates and believes in their ability to fight.

Maybe she can't contribute too much in battle but if you feel hurt she'll cast a low level dia on you.

She'll try to stay in the back row to avoid getting too much damage. ]

[tarotcards]

[ Souji would absolutely gone to attack the doppelgangers that Kido was aggressively pointing to, but he's a little busy right now. His own clone is luckily only focusing on him rather than the rest, intent on stopping him from helping out his guests. The onslaught is neverending and both Souji or Izanagi-no-Okami are barely able to slip by their clones. However, he does manage to get a Mind Charge in there and Souji makes a quick motion for everyone to move back, perhaps even grabbing one to place behind him. ]

[ He's going to also Megidolaon this thing, but with a Mind Charge that makes his next magical attack 250% greater in power. Akira, please go and weaken everyone before Souji nukes the entire place. ]

[defragment]

[ When Souji mentions they step back, 45 knows that if she gets hit by a stray lightning bolt from Izanagi-no-Okami, she'll die in one hit. Malphas returns to 45's side, aiming to distract copy Kido's Nekogami while she slips in to stick a talisman on copy Kido's head. It's a success, but Enduring Soul is a thing, so 45 doesn't relent and sticks another talisman she stole from her copy for good measure.

One more down.

Then she'll effectively stay back. She has two SMGs now with the bullets. She looted a lot of good shit from her own doppelganger's corpse. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[BWAAAAAAUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH]

[The first Megidolaon goes off, and this time the other members of the original team are unharmed, Minato. Akira notices 45 looting her doppelganger's corpse — it's a good idea, and if the weapons survive both this blast and Souji's, he'll gladly go pick up a second God of Destruction and Frenzy Dagger.]

[Akira 2 survived the first Megidolaon, and he's now trying to get a hit in with the Frenzy Dagger on Souji's blind spot while he's holding off the doppelganger Souji.]

[defragment]

[ After shooting down Iris and Wei Wuxian's doppelgangers down with more headshots, 45 gets out the mirror that collects light and attempts to blind Akira's doppelganger with it by continuously shining that at his eyes. She also has two mirrors, so if his head attempts to jerk away, the second mirror will cover that ground. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[The good news: 45's blinding connects.]

[The bad news: because of the time she spent killing other doppelgangers, Akira 2 made it pretty much all the way to Souji. So, still blinded, he stabs wildly in the direction that he thinks the original Souji is.]

[That cluster of bodies is way too dense for Akira to aim a shot, so he's switching to Sandalphon in case Souji needs an Amrita Shower.]

[toybombs]

[Not today, Persona Satan.

Rio's absurdly accustomed to violence - it's what she was made for. And so, she lines up her aim with the Akira doppelganger's head and fires a kouha bullet even as he moves.]