JANUARY DUNGEON

[citta]

JANUARY DUNGEON

premise ⬥ taken ⬥ faq ⬥ navigation

→ 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

[yokeye]

[No. Tutoring. He'll ask Rio about that later with some excuse that it suddenly occurred to him he should try harder. For now, he whines.]

I did try hard! I tried like the hardest ever!

[He attended less than half of the classes before the test, and stared out the window during it; casually marking answers - some having absolutely nothing to do with the subject at all.]

I can't try any harder or I'll have a heart attack from all the stress!

[lotusroots]

[ Ah, it's hard for Wei Ying to stay firm in the face of Toki whining. ]

Try just a little harder, okay? For me?

[ He smiles, hoping that works. ]

Anyway, I need some help setting up the classroom! Come help me.

[yokeye]

I suppose I can try a little harder...

[Wei Ying really can't expect much from him school-wise, but Toki can't possibly do worse than a 2 next time; at least he doesn't think so. So he smiles in return. Then screams internally because he's been trapped.]

Okay, I'll help~!

[He's going to move one chair and then fake exhaustion.]

[lotusroots]

[ Toki don't do that, that was his plan!! ]

Great! We need to get about ten chairs. I think the classroom down the hall has some extra ones.

[ And he starts heading that way, looking behind him to make sure Toki follows. ]

[yokeye]

[He learned from the best, it seems.]

Ten!? That's like... six trips, or.. eight...

[Toki follows, staring off into space and trying to figure out the logistics of getting ten chairs from one room to another if his exhaustion plan doesn't work. Are they stack-able? Can they put them all together and tie a rope around them and drag them as one back to Wei Ying's classroom? Do they have rope? Can they just push the stack of chairs instead? If they're not stack-able, then...

At this point he's stopped walking, standing in the middle of the hallway. It's too hard to move and think that deeply at the same time.]

[lotusroots]

[ When he stops hearing Toki's footsteps behind him, Wei Ying turns to see that he's just standing in the hall now. Knowing him, he's probably thinking about the number of trips they're gonna make. ]

Toki? Don't worry about all the trips! Think of it as bonding time!

[ He laughs. ] If we each take two chairs, that'll just be three trips.

[yokeye]

Bonding time!

[Time spent not in class. He skips ahead to catch up with Wei Ying.]

Okay, but like... that's eleven chairs! Twelve! Twelve chairs and you only want ten, so like... It's two and a half trips!

[lotusroots]

[ You know what? Wei Ying will give him that and not tell him there's no half trips. ]

That's right!

[ When they get to the classroom, it's empty. Wei Ying flips the light switch, but the lights don't come on. He sighs. ]

Looks like we'll have to deal with the lights being out. Oh well.

[yokeye]

Oh, no! It's dangerous to try and move heavy things in the dark! They don't pay you enough that you can afford to be injured! We'll just have to come back later!

[Meaning Wei Ying will come back later and Toki will escape the chair moving altogether.]

[lotusroots]

They don't pay me enough anyway!

[ Which means he's going to start feeling around in the room for chairs. Sorry, Toki. ]

Come on! We can still get some chairs.

[yokeye]

[Feeling around for things would be the catalyst for Toki realizing this is a dungeon illusion, if he were actually here. He's only a figment of Wei Wuxian's and Ala's fake stories, and as such, is a dungeon construct. So he whines to himself, and finds a chair, dragging it to him slowly, so it screeches across the floor.]

This is hard work. I think we need a break.

[He's moved it one foot.]

[lotusroots]

[ The classroom feels abnormally dark, even though reasonably there should be some light shining in through the windows. Something feels wrong, but Wei Ying is desperate to not think about it more, and he doesn't know why.

The chair's screeching halts his thoughts. ]

We'll take a break when we get back to the classroom! [ Wei Ying finally grabs onto a chair himself, and he grabs the one next to it as well. ]

If I didn't know any better, I would think you're older than me!

[yokeye]

Age is just a number~!

[He can have the bones of an old man at sixteen, you never know. But Toki grabs a second chair and actually tries this time, carrying both of the them back down the hallway to the other classroom. Trip one.]

[lotusroots]

[ They make it back to the classroom, setting down the chairs at one of the empty tables.

Since Wei Ying promised a break, he goes to get Toki a small cup of water. ]

Hey, did it feel a little too dark in that classroom? [ It's a weird question, but Wei Ying says weird things all the time. ]

[yokeye]

[Toki takes the water and drinks it all quickly. His excuse for not taking a second trip for chairs will be because he has to pee.]

Too dark?

[It seems as normal as an everyday question him. Nothing strange about it, and he only gives minimal thought to it.]

No, it's the right amount of dark.

[And then, for only a fraction of a second, a foreign sinister smile.]

It's always like a dungeon in the classrooms when the lights go off.

[lotusroots]

[ If Wei Ying didn't pride himself on being observant, he would think he made that smile up, that maybe he blinked and that's why it looked like Toki made such an expression. But he knows it's not true. ]

A dungeon... [ Right. Wasn't he in a dungeon at some point? Or was that just a dream?

Suddenly, the thought that this is a dream flashes through his mind and he grips the chair next to him, making the plastic creak. This is real—he and Lan Zhan have been married over a decade, and they adopted their children years ago too. He and his family are happy here, and they always have been. It's real.

Or maybe he just wants it to be. He shakes his head. ]

Right. Right, it's the normal amount of dark. This school is always dark, haha.

[yokeye]

[Wei Ying's fingers tightening on the chair go unnoticed, as does the creaking. Like Toki isn't paying attention, which isn't something new.]

It really is! Oh!

[Toki snaps his fingers.]

We should have lanterns in the halls for the festival! Then it will never be dark and everyone will want to stay longer~!

[lotusroots]

[ The subject change is welcome and Wei Ying immediately smiles. ]

Good idea! I bet we can find some in one of the supply closets. What color should we get?

[yokeye]

Hmm...

[Toki pretends to debate, but he will always pick the same colour first.]

Pink!