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

The fuck are you doing back here!?

[But it's obvious. He takes the cherries and laughs, because there's a whole bowl of them on the counter behind him; blocked from Ala's view at present.]

In twenty minutes. Why?

[He raises an eyebrow in suspicion.]

[ She'll see those cherries later and order a super parfait with twenty of them, just so Jiro has to find a way to stack them all up.

But for now, she just laughs and clasps her hands behind her back now that they're free, leaning back to rock on her heels. ]

So you can come eat with us, silly~ Why do you think I ordered five cherries?

How should I know? You ordered all that other weird shit on it.

[It's nice that Ala wants to eat with him, though. Since Ala and her friends are already out there, and he's likely to get fired soon anyway, Jiro finishes his current task haphazardly; scrawling barely legible things on the omurice bear plate in front of him.]

I'm going on break!

[Someone will have to switch with him. It's not his problem. The parfait Ala ordered from before is still sitting on the counter, so Jiro grabs that to dump Ala's cherries on. Good enough.]

Let's go.

[ It absolutely won't be Ala's fault that Jiro gets fired, it'll be because he does things like top parfaits with cherries fresh from the market without even washing them. Ala is frozen for a second, like she wants to say something about it, but she decides against it in favor of trotting behind Jiro to follow him out into the main cafe area.

She flashes her girl friends a thumbs up behind Jiro's back once they're out there, and the girls squeal and greet Jiro enthusiastically and look around for another chair to pull up so Jiro can join their table. In the time Ala took to buy cherries, they'd all finished the first parfait, so Jiro and Ala should share the second one, they say.

Ala's not so sure about eating the cherries anymore, bur that's okay too. ]

[Jiro isn't too big on hygiene and sanitary conditions. Their house is probably disgusting and there is definitely mold in the fridge. Unwashed cherries are the least of his transgressions, even from this shift alone. There's a fifteen second rule in this kitchen when he's on the clock.

Once they're out of the kitchen, Jiro is starting to think it's a bad idea. He takes the chair, but it's awkward that the girls are already done eating. This is some kind of constructed scenario...]

Uh, hey.

[He sets the parfait down. It looks worse than before, having been sitting on the counter in the kitchen for probably over ten minutes; the ice cream melting, the caramel hardening, and the fruit drying out in places. One cherry slides down from the ice cream and plops onto the table.]

[ Oh... She wonders how often these tables are cleaned. Probably more often than not, since Jiro's position is in the kitchen instead of up front, but Ala picks the cherry up by the stem and holds it out to Jiro anyways. ]

Say "ahh~"

[Oh my god. He should have expected something like this. Jiro snatches the cherry out of Ala's hand and he'll eat it with no consideration for all the chemicals run over the tops of the tables, which may or may not have killed any germs.]

Why did you want me to eat with you?

[He'll be straightforward in asking, while he steals one of the other girls' spoons because he forgot to bring an extra one from the kitchen for himself.]

[ They could have shared spoons... foiled.

Well! Jiro being straightforward always makes things easy, so she can be too. ]

Please go to the school festival with me!

[She would share a spoon with him after he ate the unwashed cherry, but not eat the cherries herself... Jiro's spoon clatters to the table, the ice cream in it splattering.]

What!?

[He had to have heard her wrong. He feels hot and suddenly really wants to go back to work.]

[ Yeah.

But, hm, maybe she should reword it this better so there's no doubt. ]

Please go out with me~

[ The other girls lean in expectantly. There are Witnesses, and this conversation is loud enough for everybody to hear. ]

[It was a trap. Ala's friends are looking at him with that anticipation, and they'll start squealing if he says yes or whining if says no. It will be a scene either way.

No girl has ever asked him out before, even to a school festival. Why would they? Maybe it's a joke. One of those bets where Ala wins if she brings the worst date. Yeah. That has to be it.]

I'll go if you split the money with me.

[ Ala breaks into a grin before Jiro can get anything more than "I'll go" out, but even the rest of that proposal doesn't deter her. She gets a little bit of allowance, and she's been saving up money for the past couple of weeks specifically for the cultural festival too, so if she gets to go with Jiro, she doesn't mind paying for his share of everything either. ]

Yeah, that's a deal! Hehe~ [ She turns to her friends and grins ] I got a date~

[ The other girls are not so sure, but they smile for her. The one closest to Ala pats her on the head, and the one closest to Jiro claps him on the shoulder. ]

[She's still going to play it off like this is a real date? Ala is weird. Here whole family is weird, really.]

I'll meet you there.

[So he doesn't have to interact with her father, or her brother, or anyone else in that strange ostensibly happy family that smiles too much. Jiro regrets saying yes already, and he will ignore the girl next to him; eating the melted parfait instead.]

[ Her entire family is really strangely happy. Wei Wuxian's husband is probably the oddball of their adoptive family, but the rest of them... yeah.

They're supposed to be sharing this parfait, so Ala picks out one of the little cookies to munch on, leaning back into her seat and looking rather pleased. ]

Okay~ We didn't even need all our backup plans... You were going to go with your brothers and sisters, right, Jiro? Will this be okay?

[ One of the other girls pipes up- the one sitting across from Jiro, and says "Yeah, if you need somebody to help look after them, my little sister is friends with Hanami-chan and I'll take them both around. And Miyuki-chan babysits the neighbor's kids all the time, so she's good with them."

Miyuki leans across the table and grins at Ala from the other side of Jiro. "Ala-chan spent all week begging us to agree to help so—" she ignores Ala's shushing and raises her voice a little. "Take the offer, alright, Jiro? You've got no excuses now." ]

What backup plans?

[It's probably a good idea to know; to get a sense of what to expect from Ala later. Miyuki may have experience babysitting and Hanami would like to hang out with her friend, but...]

I'm not leaving them all with you two.

[He sees this as abandoning his siblings to go out with a girl, and that's not something he wants to do. He wants to spend time with his brothers and sisters, even if they're much younger. Sure, his dad would take them, but he's not responsible enough, as far as Jiro's concerned.]

[ Wow! The girls are okay-ish babysitters and take Jiro's refusal as an affront. "This!" the first girl says, "Making it so you don't have to babysit your siblings all day!" Because nobody except apparently Jiro likes taking their little brothers and sisters around everywhere. ]

You should be able to enjoy it too, right? And it'll be so hard keeping everybody together and seeing everything everybody wants to see...

[ Groups are a nightmare. Six little siblings sounds like a nightmare to wrangle. ]

Enjoy it? I wouldn't even fucking go if they didn't want to.

[Festivals are boring. Jiro doesn't see why the older students would ever want to go, unless they have to because they're running a booth or event.]

Oh... Rei-chan would be so sad to hear that.

[ Not wanting to go to the festival? Blasphemous. Rei would cry. ]

It's different this year, though! It's going to be the best school festival the town's ever seen, enough to be famous world wide, you'll see! We all put so much work into making sure it'll be fun for everybody!

I said I was going! You don't have convince me with this shit.

[Rei will give one of his sisters smelt ice cream and she'll throw up and then they'll all go home. The best school festival.]

Why are you so excited? It happens every fucking year.

[ According to the manga, other students besides Rei liked it, but they could also be weirdos. It'll be like eating frozen fish paste. ]

Yeah, but this is our last year... The money goes towards the school trip at the end of the year, and I was talking to Itsuki about how if we make a lot of money, we can do something really fancy! With helicopters and cruise ships!

The last year.

[It doesn't really have significance to Jiro, but he sort of understands it. School is a big deal for some people; the friends they make and experiences they have. He never cared about that shit.

What he can't understand is why Ala wants to spend her last festival hanging around with him, but whatever.]

Where would you go?

[No one... ever goes anywhere. They talk about it, but they don't go. A couple of people working in the kitchen graduated three years ago and planned to go to college or see the world, but they're working in the local cafe.]

Um... Hm...

[ Where would she want to go? It's sort of a pipe dream, being able to leave town and go... somewhere. She likes it in Hirajiro; it's where all her friends and family are, and it's familiar and comfortable and she's more than happy to find a leisurely job around here after high school. The furtherst the teachers have ever taken them was the mountains for a day, and stayed only one or two nights.

Saying she wants to travel somewhere extravagant for the school trip is just a wish, but not a hope. ]

I dunno! Where would you want to go, Jiro? Maybe we can go on a roadtrip or something after graduation...

A road trip...

[No one has cars, yet... they know what cars are. It's one of the mysteries of Hirajiro life. Jiro doesn't want to leave either, and he likes it here more many of the same reasons. He maybe shouldn't be comfortable here, but he is. It shouldn't be this hard to name some place to go.]

Tokyo?

[Why have they never had school trips to Tokyo?]

[ A Hirajiro road trip is like... walking on the road. ]

Tokyo...

[ "Tokyo," the other girls echo, but they don't seem too interested about Tokyo. Even Ala knows it's a huge famous city, but beyond that, it's too... something. Busy, or noisy, or fancy. Unattainable, and so she doesn't entertain the thought. ]

That's so far away, and it'd be so expensive... I wonder what Tokyo's like. Do you think they have flying cars and giant mechas over there?

Of course they don't have flying cars and fucking mechas!

[He can't know for certain, though. Because no one he knows has ever been to Toyko. This conversation is starting to get weird, so he's changing the subject back to the festival.]

If I leave the kids with your friends for half of the festival, will you guys get the fuck outta here now and let me get back to work?

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→ 1/12 Lockdown: The Final Dungeon

Legion of the Dead

Champions of the Just

→ MOD NOTES

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