JANUARY DUNGEON

[citta]

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

[laconism]

[Charizard is already out of his ball along with all the other Pokémon, so he'll stick close to Minato since Red is also unbothered by the cold, therefore providing some heat for the injured villager he's speaking to and anyone else nearby as well. Red looks at Nero in surprise upon seeing him in his demon form; he wasn't expecting that at all, but he likewise shakes his head at the question.

This town looks like it could use a lot of help, so he relays orders for the Pokémon to Espeon in his head, who in turn tells them to the other Pokémon and they all get to work. Blastoise and Venusaur are on cleanup duty, utilizing their raw strength (and vines, in Venusaur's case) to move debris off the streets and fallen buildings. Pikachu and Espeon gather materials to be used to light the bonfires, bringing the first set over to where Charizard is who will ignite it with the flame on his tail once it's ready.

Red approaches an injured older woman who's shivering out of her mind, hugging her knees close to her chest. He doesn't ask her any questions yet; he simply puts his heavy backpack down and pulls out a thick fuzzy blanket, wrapping it around her and telling her that they'll get a fire going near her soon. He also offers her some of his own trail mix and a bottle of water.]

[compendiem]

[ The woman looks surprised, but is immensely grateful, thanking Red before taking small sips from the bottle so she can make it last, and share it with the rest of her family who might not have access to clean water out there. Since neither Red nor Nero have asked any questions, she has one for them: why are they helping?

With Minato asking for directions to Hirajiro, she originally thought the three of them hailed from that town and would be angry at this village for attacking Hirajiro. If that's wrong and they actually plan to go to Hirajiro to fight, she pleads them not to, because Hirajiro is protected by a powerful Kotengu, and one of his servants is a young man whose weapon is an arrow that had taken down a hundred of their strongest men in a single blow, and she doesn't want the three of them to suffer the same fate as their soldiers. ]

[devilshocker]

[Demonic armor provides more warmth than clothing. Plus he can fly a little bit in this form so it's just more convenient.

He wants to ask around but the villagers seem terrified of him.]

Do you mind telling us what happened? I'm not gonna be an asshole - we just want to figure out what's going on.

[Even if he looks scary now he used to be a knight. Nero knows how to talk to people for business related inquiries and the like.]

[compendiem]

[ If Nero sticks with Red, the villagers seem a little more comfortable knowing this demon is associated with the nice and helpful young man. Minato comes back from getting directions too, because he wants to listen in on the woman's story about what happened.

She says that of all the villages scattered around the mountains, Hirajiro was always tiny and peaceful, naturally protected on all sides by the forest and mountains, with fertile plains good for farming. As the population in each village grows, there's been some fighting to take land from other villages, and that's what they were trying to do: take over Hirajiro for the resources because their own town isn't built on good soil and the people will soon starve. They thought that the people of Hirajiro worshiped the Daitengu— protective spirits— but didn't account for the new Kotengu god. She gestures around to the ruins of the village, which looks like it's been torn apart by a tornado with every building crushed, twisted, and flung aside, and says it was the Kotengu's doing. Almost all of the people are dead, and that demon with the arrow has killed almost all of their men before the last handful of them were able to retreat.

It was their own fault, she says, and she regrets it. They shouldn't have attacked Hirajiro, having underestimated the Kotengu, and there's no way they will survive the winter with so few numbers and no shelter. ]

[compendiem]

[ Nero being nice is the way to go. They already feel bad about attacking Hirajiro, so they don't need these strangers to berate them for it again. Minato thanks her for explaining what happens, and pulls Nero and Red aside, because there's nothing much they can do here. Red's Pokemon helping out the townspeople to rebuilt is a kind gesture he hopes will come around as good karma for the rest of the dungeon, but they are just fake people in a dungeon, not actual history that they've been transported back through time to.

Do the lives and deaths of fake people matter? It can be argued.

But it's not the point. The Kotengu tore apart this town with what looks like tornadoes— "magarudyne," Minato says— and now this town will never attack again. They should get back to Hirajiro and see what's going on there, unless Red or Nero have anything else they want to ask the townspeople. Otherwise, it's a trek down the mountains back to town, in hopes they'll be able to meet up with the rest of their team. ]

[devilshocker]

[He attempts to be nice sometimes. Right now he's more or less content with leaving things to Minato or Red. Minato's proven himself to be somewhat capable and he can at least work with others. His judgment hasn't gotten them killed yet. It's fine to proceed as things are now.

The villagers and the people might be fake though. It's still part of the dungeon and that much is true.

Nero's always been a bit finicky on the morality scale. He'll kill if he needs to but senseless murder doesn't sit well with him. There's no reason to provoke the towns people or to cause unrest. ]

Hey, Minato. Have you figured out what to do from here? [He's defaulting to Minato for important decisions. To be completely fair, Minato does have experience and may have more insight as well.]

[compendiem]

Get back to the town and see if we can find the rest of the team. Tartarus used to split us up like this, so...

[ He shrugs. The goal in Tartarus was also to get to the next floor— find the staircase and keep going, only fighting if something's in the way and ignoring them otherwise, and that's what he plans to do here. They can go out of their way to help people and feel good about it, but more important is to keep going and get to whatever's at the very end in the boss' chamber. ]

We don't need to figure everything out. We just need to get everybody to the end.

[ He points out to the distance where he can see the Kotengu's castle. Through one of the open windows, he can see the throne, and behind the throne is a glowing blue door. From past experiences (aka the other shrine dungeon) glowing blue doors are a good guess for where the exit would be, and—-


There's a thump from behind them, and Minato whirls around. ]

Red—-!

[devilshocker]

We aren't getting anywhere like that.

[Nero walks over to Red and growls through his nostrils. It sounds more like an angry dinosaur more than anything else. Still, Nero sounds concerned and mildly worried even if he wouldn't admit it.]

Is he gonna be okay? It might just be exhaustion.

[If it's not something that simple then he's at a loss of what to do. He'll go out of his way to prop Red upwards so his head isn't slammed into the floor.]

[compendiem]

[ As long as the angry dinosaur is a strong dinosaur, because they still have a ways to go until they reach the castle. Minato kneels down next to Red and digs through his pockets, but he's a fool who gave away all his trail mix and with Sasuke hanging onto the med kit, Minato doesn't have any revival items on him. ]

...He's not okay. Something's wrong with Amarok— his Persona's badly injured.

[ He leaves Red for Nero to carry, while Minato stands up again and looks around, but there's nothing like a Shadow or anything that he can see has attacked Red. Maybe he wasn't paying close enough attention and Amarok was hurt all this time, and the exhaustion was the tipping point. ]

Being in dungeons for too long wears away at people... We need to get out of here fast, if you can hang onto Red, and Charizard—- yeah.

[ The dragon is already there by his trainer's side, nudging Red's face with his snout before sitting still so everybody can climb on his back and he can fly them to the castle. The rest of the Pokemon get returned to their Pokeballs, which Minato stuffs into Red's pockets, except for Pikachu who takes to Red's shoulders and paws at his face, keeping him awake.

Let's get out of here. ]

[devilshocker]

[Unfortunately, Nero's out of medical items as well because he was just relying on Rei until they split. So they should have planned this out better.

Nero can carry plenty of weight as long as he doesn't speed on ahead or anything like that.

He thinks they'll be able to move around better if he carries Minato as well. Watch out, Minato. Soon he'll be tossed upon Nero's shoulders for convenience. There's like no warning as this is going on. ]

[compendiem]

[ They're going to come back with an ego death teammate and Rei is going to be so at them. She left them alone! for just ONE ROOM!!

but holy shit, okay, Minato tenses up slightly in surprise to find himself hoisted up off the ground, but he relaxes quickly, like a cat who decides being carried is fine. Nero's going to have to sit on Charizard's back and like... hold on tight with his thighs or something lmao but Charizard flies them low and slow, a very easy and smooth glide down from the mountain to the castle in the forest. ]

[devilshocker]

You better not be afraid of heights. [Nero says that in jest because Minato is most likely not going to be afraid of something so trivial.

They get where they need to be within a few minutes at most, thanks to Charizard.]

Oh crap. Brace yourself for some impact.

[He can feel himself shifting back into a human. Nero isn't fully demon so he can't stay in that shape forever. It's a shame he's just going to tumble right into the exit. Maybe Minato can just look after himself somehow.

h e l p ]