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

[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.]

[infiltrationtools]

[Akira tries to warn Rio, but he can't speak and can only wave his hands to get her attention.]

[Persona Satan cannot change his schedule! These plans include being entirely unaffected by Rio's bullet, since Lucifer blocks Bless. Lucifer also has the beefier Attack stat so that Frenzy Dagger will hurt more.]

[At least it wasn't Sandalphon...]

[tarotcards]

[ Wow, all of you guys suck. Souji's here, trying to do his best to protect you all, and you can't do the simple thing of stopping Akira 2. Maybe he should have gone with the other team. ]

[ Being preoccupied with his own doppelganger, Souji doesn't have enough time to react. The knife cuts him deeply through his upper arm and its effect takes hold on him instantly. ]

[ Someone better use an Amirta Shower on him quickly before he turns around to guide his sword through someone's throat. ]

[reveilation]

[ If Souji had gone with the other team, I bet he would be crying right now.

Versus Souji, Kido figures Nekogami has the best chance against him, with the Persona running to intercept that sword while at the same time casting Amrita Shower on him, and plans to try and tackle Akira's doppleganger to the ground after. He moves fast enough to cover the distance, and even with the time it takes to cast Megidolaon on the doppleganger, he's still a better shot that Minato. Everybody is, if they try. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[As soon as Rio fired, he was on it. Lucifer disappears and Sandalphon manifests in his place, so big that it can only kneel to fit in this chamber. But it spreads its arms wide, and a golden halo of light descends upon the original Persona users - Mediarahan.]

[defragment]

[ 45 takes the chance to fling an incendiary grenade at Souji's doppelganger and has Malphas ignite it with Cosmic Flare when it reaches the target. Seeing that the original Souji was affected by status ailments from a physical attack, 45 gets out the crossbow with arrows that are laced with high chance of fear, and shoots that right between the Souji's doppelganger's eyes. ]

[lotusroots]

[ Wei Wuxian knows when he isn't needed, and watching everyone with their fancy modern weapons tells him just that. Thankfully, he's light on his feet and it's easy enough for him to stay out of the way.

He's here for moral support and any low level healing. ]

[tarotcards]

[ The doppelganger just barely manages to cut down the arrow that aims for his head. I forgot that Izanagi-no-Okami had Angelic Grace that doubles his evasion so I guess OG Souji just had the bad luck of being super distracted while the fake is solely focused on defending himself. He saw the original use a Mind Charge and, well, Souji still hasn't used it so the fake doppelganger knows what's going on. ]

[ Now that he's back to normal, Souji sends one more warning for everyone to stand back with a motion of his arms and grabbing anyone close by to throw behind him. Don't mind him, he'll just use a 250x charged Megidolaon to nuke the field. He definitely has better aim than Minato but he also wants to kill as many doppelgangers as possible so... you better have gotten behind him. ]

[defragment]

[ Haha, yup... 45 is definitely not getting caught up in that area and pulls Kido away from the danger zone or any other allies that are too close for comfort.

She'd be surprised if there's anything left after that. ]

[reveilation]

[ Thanks for not letting Kido die so early in the dungeon, because then Souji would have had to set her on fire and murder Terry is going to have to leave the other dungeon and still be murder Terry.

Kido has Nekogami out in front of her and 45 before the dust settles, looking around to see whether there are still any copies around, but... only one Souji and one Akira remains standing. Or not. idk if Souji's 250x Megidolaon is enough to set off Rio's explosives bag, which is a very dangerous thing to have when they're forced to fight in such close quarters. ]

[toybombs]

[Yeah, Rio definitely made sure to get the hell behind Souji. And a very good thing, too.

She peers out from behind all of the others because she's weak and clearly needed to use you all as meatshields??? Seeing what the damage is.

And honestly if that megidoloan caused an actual shockwave they would've been slammed with a compressed air layer equivalent to hitting a brick wall so like. Probably it was contained enough not to set that off, at least??]

[tarotcards]

[ Yeah, I'm going to say that the Megidolaon doesn't set off the explosives because at least one team needs to live to gather plot clues. Only the fake Souji and Akira remain, but at least the fake Souji is heavily injured. A few teaming up on him should be enough to quickly take him down. He's slower with his injuries and both Izanagis are tools who don't have any healing spells. ]

[defragment]

[ After the Megidolaon dies down, 45 doesn't hesitate to rush in at the fake Souji to stab his face with a 2-inch blade that has a very high chance of inflicting charm in an attempt to finish him off.

She's not one for long battles, so please die. ]

[tesa]

[Suddenly Iris remembers that she can use an agility boosting spell. She's not really used to using her persona yet.

Instead of healing in the background she'll cast sukaka whenever she is able to. It may help them dodge incoming attacks and avoid damage. ]

[reveilation]

[ Healing can wait. Between healing and attacking, Kido goes for attacking— the agility boost is helpful in having Nekogami get right up in Akira clone's face and fire off a megidolaon. Whatever weapons Akira wants to scavenge later will be safe! He just won't have an intact face.

Goodbye. Kindly die. ]

[tarotcards]

[ Souji's double kindly dies, though he's not very happy about it. His sword and backpack full of supplies are there for the taken. ]

[ Hopefully Akira 2 goes down as well. ]

[defragment]

[ Yeah, 45 is taking that backpack. Thanks, Souji double. Feels great when she couldn't take down Souji's spirit from before too. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[Walks in three days late with a thermos of homemade coffee, and also the news that Akira 2 is dead. Akira himself is still on healing duty with Sandalphon, so he's supporting the fuck out of y'all.]

[We did it.]

No one loot mine, I want to see what's there.

[toybombs]

[Rio beelined for her own double anyway, so. That's probably fine.]

If anyone else wants some healing items, they can take these.

[There's a full kit of 'em still. She's confiscating the weaponry, though.]