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

[parhellia]

[ What is the mask made of? She's too scared to look down and see, and sort of holds the box a little further away from herself. ]

Calm down, calm down~ Just follow me to the lab, I'll get us there, and we'll figure it out!

[ At least one of them is good with directions and less prone to panic once the initial scare is over, so she takes a moment to hook her arm with Toki's so he doesn't get turned around, and takes him along with her down the hall. There's lots of students going back and forth, so at times they'll have to crab shuffle in order to pass single file through traffic. ]

[yokeye]

[Toki's paying no attention to where they're going. He keeps looking over at the mask in the box, expecting it to glare at him with red eyes if he catches it fast enough. Every time they get too close to people in the hallway, he wants to scream at them to run because the mask is possessed and no one knows how far its aura reaches.

Luckily, the chemistry lab isn't that far away and he manages to keep his screams inside. There's no one in the lab at the moment, so Toki breaks away from Ala's hold to rush to the cabinets. He gathers a hot plate, a bunsen burner, and a lighter.]

One of these should work, right?

[He leaves them on the table and digs through the lower cabinet for any explosive chemicals just in case they have to blow it up instead.]

[parhellia]

[ Hot plate, bunsen burner, lighter. Okay. While Toki takes care of the prep, Ala moves everything over to the fume hood, setting the box on the ground and turning on the hood so it can start filtering air, and pushing the sash all the way up so she has space to dump the hot plate and bunsen burner inside--

Having the hood all the way open for more than five seconds triggers the alarm, and it starts to blare and Ala screams, scrambling back away from cardboard box. ]

Toki!! Do something!

[yokeye]

Like what!?

[What he does is panic; running over to Ala and and flailing around until he decides to light the bunsen burner anyway and plug in the hot plate, the alarm ignored. He rolls his sleeve down over his hand to grab the mask with, and then flings it inside the fume hood too, slamming the sash down after.

The alarm's still going, and they should leave before someone comes in, but they also have to stay to make sure the mask is burned. Toki grabs Ala's hand and runs across the room to hide under one of the back lab tables.]

[parhellia]

[ Ala ducks underneath the table and crouches to make herself small, putting herself a little in front of Toki so if something explodes, she can protect him from the worst of it. It's hard to see when the surface of the fume hood is high up and she's on the ground, but she can see the tip of the flame burning still. Even with the sash shut, there's the grating that allows air inside the hood so the flame shouldn't go out too quickly.

The alarm is still sounding, though. She can't see the mask from here. ]

...The flame is too tiny, Toki. We need to make it bigger. I'm going to throw the box inside too-- I'll be right back.

[yokeye]

Ala, no!

[But there she goes. Toki's too much of a coward to leave his hiding spot. She'll be okay.]

Don't breathe in the fumes!

[parhellia]

[ Toki does his best to warn her, but it's for the entirely wrong reasons and it's already too late anyways, Ala already up outside of the desk and holding her breath when Toki warns her. She pulls the ribbon out of her uniform and ties it around her nose and mouth just in case, too, then quickly snatches up the box and opens the hood and-- decidedly doesn't just toss it inside and scram, because she would knock everything over that way and that would be a disaster!

Instead, she quickly makes sure the bunsen burner is turned up as high as it'll go, that the mask is next to it and then she sets the cardboard box over the entire thing so that it's covered. The fire will provide light so the mask won't draw strength from the darkness, and soon the box will catch fire and help burn the mask. Foolproof.

When she turns to leave, the sash hasn't been closed all the way, leaving a two to three inch gap when she runs away and ducks underneath the table with Toki. The alarm quiets down, while the box catches on fire. ]

...I think it's working.

[yokeye]

[As soon as Ala returns, Toki clutches one of her hands.]

I was so scared you were going to die...

[His hand is sweaty and trembling. This kind of adventure isn't good for him. He watches the flames lick at the box, but before too long, there's a plume of pale red smoke coming out from the gap in the sash, and starting to filter through the grating.]

It's escaping!

[Toki shrieks, because he's just remembered something important.]

We forgot an incantation!

[parhellia]

[ Oh my god. Ala's hand clamps down tight on Toki's because it's escaping and they forgot an incantation— she doesn't know any incantations-- IT'S ESCAPING and it's RED and IF THEY BREATHE, THEY DIE. ]

D-demon, go away, we order you! Go away! Stop!! Uhh--

[ She undoes her ribbon so she can tie it around Toki's mouth instead. He screams louder. He would breathe the demonic energy in faster, otherwise. In the meanwhile, she backs away, reaching for the cabinets lining the wall, where there's stock bottles full of all sorts of reagents she doesn't recognize. Should they throw some sort of liquid? Salt banishes demons. The ones ending in hydrochloride are probably salts. ]

[yokeye]

[Toki continues to hide under the table and let Ala handle this. He trusts her not to make the whole thing explode and cover the room with demon mask remnants.]

[parhellia]

[ Why is she being trusted with this... No, it'll be okay, big sis will take care of everything. Ala decides on a bottle of whatever white salt-like thing looks the fullest, the label reading EDTA and last week's date, and starts sprinkling the crystals around her and Toki to be used as a barrier.

She then takes Toki's hand again and tugs him out from under the table, sprinkling the EDTA along as she goes, so there's a trail dividing them and the rest of the lab where the demon has been unleashed. They can safely make it to the door this way, but they'll have to abandon the room and rope this place off. ]

[yokeye]

[Once they're out into the hallway and the the door is shut, Toki feels slightly safer... for less than five seconds. He can't breathe, but it takes him a minute to realize it's Ala's ribbon and not demon particles blocking his air. He slides the ribbon off his mouth to immediately screech in the hallway.]

What have we done!? The whole room's contaminated and what if the mask smoke is stopped by the salt only on the floor and it's going into the air vents and infecting the entire school RIGHT NOW!?

[parhellia]

[ More than a handful of heads turn towards Toki, with murmurs of "drama club?" and "No, it's just Toki" circulating around them. ]

Umm, hmm, what should we do?

[ She swings Toki's hand a little while she thinks, but it only takes a second or two to come up with a plan. ]

-—a vacuum cleaner! We need the vacuum cleaner from the janitor's closet so we can suck up all the mask smoke!

[yokeye]

[Toki has learned to tune out any mentions of his name in the background.]

That's perfect!

[Ala has the best ideas.]

We'll suck up the smoke and the salt and then it can't escape from the bag! You get the vacuum-

[Because it's heavy.]

- and I'll go to the office and make an announcement over the PA system that no one can use the chemistry lab because it's tainted by demon mask smoke!

[parhellia]

Mmhm, leave it to me! You go on and make that announcement! Hurry~!

[ There's a closet on each floor so the janitor doesn't have to wheel buckets of water up and down stairs, so her task seems simple enough to her. Suck up the smoke and salt. She would have left the salt if Toki hadn't said otherwise and just left the vacuum cleaner running in the middle of the room to suck up all the air, but she'll remember to do the salt now.

She's not sure if Toki will be able to find the announcement room, but that's also fine whether he does or does not. She'll get this demon contained, and then go find him after. ]

[yokeye]

[Toki finds the office after almost a half hour of searching. Ala has surely finished her vacuuming by now. Though for Toki, he feels as if no time has passed and the urgency of the announcement still remains.

Throughout the school, the PA system crackles to life and there's a sharp squeal of feedback, followed by:]

ATTENTION STUDENTS AND FACULTY, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THE CHEMISTRY LAB IS OFF LIMITS DUE TO DEMON POSSESSION! DO NOT ENTER THE CHEMISTRY LAB UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES UNLESS YOU ARE A LICENSED PROFESSIONAL DEMON DESTROYING... GUY... EXORCIST! OKAY, LET ME START OVER! ATTENTION STUDENTS AND- NO, THAT PART WAS FINE- DO NOT ENTER THE CHEMISTRY LAB UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES UNLESS YOU ARE A LICENSED EXORCIST!

[parhellia]

[ Oh that's Toki's voice. By the time the announcement crackles to life, Ala has finished cleaning up, though she's left the vacuum on just in case and turns it off temporarily so she can listen in on Toki's announcement. She can also hear student's voices outside the laboratory door, and can distinctly pick out the words "drama club?" and "Toki."

The vacuum cleaner gets switched back on for white noise in the background as Ala surveys her work. The salt's been vacuumed off the ground and the vacuum cleaner is in front of the hood where there's no more red smoke because the all the paint's burned off the mask. It turns out it was made of wood all along, and she can finish burning it by holding the bunsen burner in her hands upside down over the remains of the mask, humming tunelessly under her breath. Now nobody's going to disturb her while she finishes the job. Thanks, Toki. ]