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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Excellent. They're just normal human strength. Jiro continues to hit anyone who comes close enough, and snatches a torch for himself like Ala. They just need a path to escape, so they can run and not waste all their energy on these people.]

BACK THE FUCK OFF OR I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU!

[Maybe just go with inciting fear.]

[ lmfao holy shit. Ala's shoulders jolt as she turns to look at Jiro with the same horror that possesses each person in the mob upon hearing that declaration- in that moment they're frozen, Ala takes Jiro's wrist and gives him a quick tug forward so they can take advantage of the pause and break through more of the mob, which quickly reanimates with shouts of Jiro being a murderer, that he's a monster who will kill with no remorse, that they knew they should have just given him the death penalty instead of keeping him in jail because this is what would have happened if he got out, he would have started killing again.

Shut up shut up shutupshutupshutup--

Ala lunges forward and swing the torch at people's faces, their clothes and their hair and trying to catch them on fire because she's just fine being a monster. She was a demon to begin with, and her job is to fight to protect those important to her and the rest of the world can burn for all she cares.

The townspeople are more wary now, angry but that just makes their impulsive and predictable, backing off when facing her and Jiro and swinging their torches to make up for the space. If there's somebody in the way, she doesn't hesitate to plow into them at all, torch clutched tight in front of her and if the fire gets caught between her and the blockade, she won't be the one to back down first. ]

[At this point, in this situation, Jiro will accept his role as a monster. It's nothing new, but this kind of response is. He's certainly given them reason to hate him and fear him.]

Yeah! Shoulda fucking killed me when you had the fucking chance! NOW YOU'RE ALL DEAD!

[Jiro's had a lot of frustrations since arriving in Hirajiro, and things build up. Right now, he'll take it all out on these fake townspeople. He's less going for escape now, and even when there's a clear path, he'll continue beating the shit out of whoever he can reach. He'll be a murderer if they decide he is.]

[ Ala's priority is still to escape, since with all her powers sealed, she's like any normal person who can get hurt, isn't very strong, and nor is she very fast, looking for breaks in the line to drag Jiro through it, but she has trouble holding him back too. Torches aren't the only things the townspeople are carrying. The ones closest to the house are the ones wielding fire to burn it down, but as they make their way through the throng of people, they start to hold shovels and pickaxes, farming equipment to be repurposed for tearing down the two houses and killing anybody inside if they resist.

A shovel comes swinging, and the blunt end of it hits the torch in Ala's hands and it splinters, the fire dropping on the ground and quickly smothered by the melting snow. The townsperson swings the shovel a second time, and Ala screams, putting her hands up in front of her face so she can block it- she manages to catch the handle, but the force of the blow and the ice under her feet bring her down. ]

Jiro!!

[ Time to grab better weapons, or flee. Can't punch your way through this mob. ]

[Fuck. They actually have pitchforks; and other sharp and blunt weapons. They can't take all these people, especially without any powers. Jiro's rage is quickly dismissed, because it's not the time. He can't be Terry.

He kicks the townsperson he was fighting with in the knee, and he goes down easily, screaming and dropping his small... scythe? Sickle? Jiro isn't a farmer and has no idea what it's called, but it has a blade and that's good enough for him. He grabs the weapon and runs towards Ala, swinging it at anyone in the way.]

Ala! Are you okay? We have to run; there's too many of them!

[ There can only be one Terry, and that's a good thing. Even Minato would have gone the most straightforward route of carving out his own escape path and leaving the rest of the hoard be, and Ala doesn't hesitate to scramble to her feet and nod her agreement. She makes to step closer to Jiro, realizes that's stupid, and instead lets him take the front position while she points straight forward, the person right in front of her flinching at the sudden finger in front of their face. ]

I'm okay! We'll go to the forest— they don't play in the forest, but I do! We can shake them off in there!

[It's weird for him to be leading the way here, in Hirajiro, as he's been considering himself one of the weakest people. But it's because of the Personas and powers. On a human level, it's the opposite.

Jiro's spent a lot of time in the forest too, while living at the castle. The townspeople were seldom seen out there. Ala's right, it's a good place to lose them. They might be satisfied with banishing them from town anyway.

The mob seems determined not to let them get through, getting more violent and insistent and more apt to lash out with their pitchforks unrestrained. They're impossible to avoid altogether, and Jiro gets stabbed in the side. Hopefully, it hasn't penetrated a vital organ. He'll deal with it later, once they've made it to the forest.]

[ AAAAAAAAaaaaa

They have no choice but to move on, Ala letting out a strangled yell when she sees blood blossoming on Jiro's side, but the townsperson has already pulled the pitchfork back to prepare for another stab when Ala stomps hard on his foot— nothing more than a very minor annoyance, but it's annoyance enough for her to grab hold of the handle. She's not strong enough to pull it out of the man's grip, but she doesn't need to; all she has to do is pull it forward and guide it into another townsperson's face.

Farm weapons are so unwieldy. They're not meant to be used as weapons but she doesn't have anything else on her except—-

oh.

OH!! But she does, she reaches into her infinite bag sewed into her left hoodie pocket and pulls out the sword Wei Wuxian had chosen for her back in Akira's dungeon. She never learned how to use it and had completely forgotten about it, but it's light and swishy and that's more important than the fact that it's slightly bent and rusted over with old blood. You don't need skill to use a sword; it's good old hack and slash, nicking people in the face or arm or leg or whatever, it doesn't matter, people will get out of the way. ]

Where the fuck did you get a sword!?

[She could have used that from the beginning. The townspeople seem more frightened of the sword Jiro's pilfered scythe. Maybe they think it's magical, who knows. Ala did just pull it out of her pocket.

They back off enough to give Jiro and Ala a path for escape. Whether or not they'll be chased all the way to the forest is unknown.]

Picked it up at school!

[ The school dungeon. Anyways, it might be a plain old sword, but it's magical in its own right, seeing as it parts the seas and Ala can see the other side of the street for the first time since they've stepped foot out of the house. They're definitely being chased, though, until they reach the forest and the townspeople can be assured they're good and gone and won't be sneaking back into town the moment they're out of sight. If Jiro can't keep up while bleeding everywhere, Ala stays behind him so she can wave her sword around and scream at the townspeople to back off and go away. ]

[Ala probably had to do that a couple of times, but eventually they make it far enough into the forest for the townspeople to give up. Jiro's still bleeding, so it's not good. But one problem at a time.]

Now what the fuck do we do? There has to be door somewhere. The castle?

[ They're so deep into the forest that there's nothing but trees, snow piled up halfway up to their knees and there's no paths to follow. It's quiet out here aside from their labored breathing, no crows to be heard or bears to be seen, and it's dark enough now that night's fallen that it's easy to get lost if they didn't have the faint lights from the town in the distance to use as a guide. ]

Mm, let's go to the castle. Maybe the Velvet Room is still there, and we can find bandages and stuff for you before you die. Like, the long ones you wrap around, not the little sticker ones.

[ She only has the little normal bandaids, and there's no way it's going to stick on a stab wound. Dipping her head, she peers at it, but she's no healer and so she can't tell how to help. ]

Are you supposed to ice wounds? Or are you supposed to keep warm?

Ice. Cold constricts blood vessels or something and it doesn't bleed as much.

[But he's covering the punctures with his hand right after that, before Ala thinks shoving snow in them is a good idea. Though maybe it is.]

[ That's exactly what she planned to do, nodding and stooping to scoop up snow in her hands and pat it down so it's a dense chunk of ice instead of fluff. ]

Here, hold this to it to stop the bleeding. Once we get to the Velvet Room, Souji's got this straw tea that's supposed to be good for poison and stuff, so you don't have to worry about infections!

[ Everything is all planned out and fine, and they shouldn't be too far from the Velvet Room either. The castle is just up ahead and... is four stories tall, complete with a deep moat that's completely iced over, a stone wall surrounding the entire outside perimeter with towers at each corner with stationed bowmen.

They don't seem to have noticed either Ala or Jiro yet, but they will soon if they come any closer. ]

[Jiro takes the ice, because that isn't too horrible of an idea.]

Straw tea? He didn't fucking make it from warajis, did he?

[Once the restored castle comes into view, Jiro stops. Is it the restored castle, or the castle before it was destroyed? Avoiding the guards is a good idea for now, until they have some sort of plan. But all plans will include going inside.

His injury is no longer his priority, and he whispers to Ala.]

I wanna see what's on the walls in there.

[The murals he was trying to clean before, and potentially more of them.]

[ It might be made from boiled warajis. Souji probably just takes the loose straw, while Minato dumps the entire Shadow into a pot of water, but the effects are the same and they might not be able to get to that point anyways, not without finding a way inside. ]

There's only one way inside, and that's through the front, since neither of us can fly over.

[ At least the gate is up, a twenty foot wide gap in the wall that goes straight to the castle, but it's too hard to see anything in there without getting closer. She has to think about what to do... there's the option of one of them being bait and leading guards away from the castle, but there's probably more soldiers inside, with an actual armory to arm themselves with instead of just farm tools. ]

What should we do? Do you think... if walk out quietly, they won't shoot? Or maybe they're like the people back in town, and will attack right away? Maybe if we say you're hurt...

[ Maybe they will have pity. Maybe they will cut Jiro down knowing he's wounded and no longer a threat. ]

[It's not going to be easy, if they can get in at all. Looking at Ala, Jiro thinks they'll be suspicious of her as an outsider even if this castle is somehow from before the Persona users' time. She doesn't look like a Hirajiro native. But he does. If the guards do know about them and it's a restored castle from the future, they'll probably be killed on sight.]

If they don't already know who we are, they might see you as a foreigner and be wary, if the guards are anything like the people from town. I can tell them I got attacked by a bear or something...

[Either way, their plans are basically "walk through the front door".]

But if they know who we are, it's gonna be a fight no matter what we do.

[ If either way is a fight, Ala is understandably uneasy about all of this, because Jiro's hurt and she can't fight and she really doesn't want to find out what happens if they die here. ]

We can see how they react, whether they let us talk or if they shoot first. If things look bad, we can always run away. How about that?

[ Go up and make themselves known, and judge then whether the soldiers here are willing to talk, or if they'll shoot no questions asked. ]

Or we can just forget about it and find someplace else... Like the shrine. Maybe we can meet up with Minato and the others by going through that door in the back? I don't think the two dungeons would be connected, though.

They might be.

[Which is something Jiro hadn't considered; there has to be a reason there's two dungeons. It's something to look into, even if it's unlikely. The shrine's not far.

Jiro looks over at the guards again. If there's even two more of them inside, they don't really stand much of a chance. Ala has her sword, but they could shoot her before she even gets close enough to use it. Jiro's already bleeding all over the place and it's a very bad idea in the end.]

Let's try the shrine.

[They can come back to the castle if that's a dead end.]

Okay!

[ There's more relief than anything in her voice, renewed energy in her steps as she pulls away from the castle back into the thicket of trees to find that path that will bring them to the shrine. There's little hope that the other team can come out and help, but that doesn't matter as long as the two of them can enter this shrine and find somebody to help Jiro.

Again, she has to march through the snow, picking her legs straight up and down instead of pushing through the foot and a half— and steadily taller mounds of snow until they find that path that's been shoveled and well cleared. Ala stands at the bottom of the stairs and looks up. All there is is the faint blue glow of the weird lanterns with the blue-white flames, but she can't see any moving shadows or hear any voices, though she also can't be 100% sure until they're at the very stop of the stairs. ]

Hopefully there's nobody up there.

[The deep snow is annoying; trudging through it takes more energy than Jiro wants to expend at this point. If he bleeds to death in the first room of this dungeon, he'll never go in one again. Someone can only die so many times.]

It doesn't look like it.

[He's also not discounting the possibility of Shadows emerging when they get to the top. Will the shrine look different, like the castle?]

[ It sort of does, but the difference isn't as stark as the castle's. If anything, it looks like the shine is well cared for for once and has been for a long time, the snow swept aside and structures gleaming under a light dusting of snow instead of the trampled slushy ice normally seen in front of the offertory box only because none of the Persona users bother to maintain the place. Inside each stone lantern is a blue-white flame, and the offertory box is overflowing with golden coins instead of gemstones. There's a spot to burn incense and leave other offerings, and the sign that's to display the name of the shrine's deity is still painted over in black, but is heavily stained with blood, strong enough to smell with no writing visible underneath.

The shrine grounds are completely empty, with no people and no animals either, not even a sign of bird or fox tracks in the snow.

Ala, ignoring all of this, makes a beeline for the honden behind the shrine, where the two bird statues on either side of the door stare down at her with shining red gemstone eyes. The door does not open. ]

[The blood on the sign is the first thing Jiro notices, because he was looking for the name on the shrine. There's no blood in the snow around it, but it smells fresh. Unlike the usual sight at the shrine, crow feet patterns are nowhere to be seen.

Jiro doesn't follow Ala to the honden right away. He's stopping to pocket some of the coins, to maybe examine them in detail later if they don't disappear when he leaves this room.]

[ They may or may not disappear, but they're not the usual currency used by the townspeople he's familiar with either. Terry or Ala might recognize it, if he shows either of them later, but their priority should be getting out of this place to meet up with the others, whichever team that might be. ]

It's no good, the door won't open. Maybe it's because it's not midnight yet in this world?

[ It's nighttime but not midnight. From this height at the top of the stairs, they can see the town in the distance that still has its lights, but once night falls, it's very hard to tell the difference between 2am and 4am, the entirety of night looking exactly the same between dusk and dawn. ]

How're you holding up? Can you wait until midnight, or should we not just sit around and do nothing?

We can wait.

[It won't bleed as much if he stops moving.]

I wanna see what happens at midnight.

[If anything. But they're already here; they may as well see if something changes at Lockdown.]

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→ 1/12 Lockdown: The Final Dungeon

Legion of the Dead

Champions of the Just

→ MOD NOTES

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