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.

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[Kano is a good friend, encouraging him to just quit.]

I don't want to go- wait! Wait!

[He runs through what Kano said again.]

YOU'RE DEAD!?

[ Yeah, quit while you're ahead. It's with Toki's best interests in mind. ]

Haha~ Surprise~!!

[ He's dead! ]

Ellie's dead too! Remember her? She's over there trying to gnaw some new guy's arm off, I dunno his name.

[Ellie... was eaten... and now she's trying to eat someone. Is she a zombie? A bear demon? Nothing makes sense... because none of this is real. Someone else will figure out how to leave this room and continue so they can escape the dungeon. Toki has given up, and he'll accept Kano's "death" with unusual calm.

Then it's as if he's just chatting with Kano; catching up with an old friend.]

If you've been dead, I guess you haven't heard about things that happened. Okay, so, most importantly, I got married~!

[ Ellie should bite off Toki's arm for brushing off her death like that. ]

Ehh, really? Congrats, Toki! Wow!

[ Like seriously, wow. Okay. We're doing it like this. ]

Man, I can't believe I died before I got to see that happen. Sure sucks! Didya cry? I bet you cried~

It does! You could have been my best man!

[Kano could have made the wedding amazing with illusions.]

I totally cried! Like more than once! All the cats had sweaters and flower crowns and it was amazing!

[He will keep going with the small talk until his brain explodes from blocking out the dungeon.]

[ Toki needs better friends.

But Kano could have made it so good, a full blown castle with sparkling marble and golden trim, the room lit by the fractured rainbow from a stained glass window up above the altar, Rei's dress laced with flower buds and pearls and a ten foot train with no weight to carry. There could have been fireworks. ]

He~h... You're really living the life, aren'tcha, Toki? I wonder how long it'll last? I got caught up on this and that from the big man over there, and at the rate you're going... well! Better be sure what you're doing! Or are you gonna just go along with what everybody else wants this time too?

[What everyone else wants... He always does that, doesn't he? Even now; because he can't stop putting other people first, for fear they won't like him anymore. That he'll be abandoned and alone. Friendships based on desperation and lies.

Toki thinks back on Ala's card reading. He had made a decision then, which had lasted maybe five minutes. Can he go through with it now?]

The big man... is the Kotengu?

[It's clicking into place what Minato and Sasuke have been talking about over there. It's time to make an offering.]

Kano, I want to talk to the Kotengu. I want to make a contract.

The big man? Hum.

[ He looks over at Naoya, but the guy seems busy over there chatting up his own teammate, so he might as well kill some time humoring Toki ]

Alright, alright, be right back and I'll get him~

[ Easy enough with the help of illusions and the fact that nobody really knows what the Kotengu looks like— or at least he believes so, anyways, not knowing everybody does now except for Toki. All that matters is that Toki doesn't know, so Kano walks around him and when he appears on other side, he looks like Tokoyami from BNHA, the hero costume version with the black cape. Not that any of this matters since Toki is blind and Kano doesn't know.

Anyways. With a gravely voice to match his appearance: ]

Tokidoki. You wished to forge a contract with me?

[Toki would believe in a second that the Kotengu looks like Tokoyami, even in a school uniform. The voice startles him, and he expected it to take longer to summon the Kotengu.]

Um, K-kotengu-san... I mean, oh, great and wise Kotengu-san! I apologize for being rude earlier!

[He still doesn't know the last Kotengu they encountered was one from the past.]

Yes! I wish to forge a contract with you! I love your village of Hirajiro deeply and I wish to remain here forever with my lovely wife~! But everyone else wants to go home! So... c-can we stay if I give you my soul? Or what's left of it?

[ What's left— jfc, Kano almost drops character for a second, but he can do that behind the mask without giving himself away. ]

What's "left" of it? Can you not give me a full, untainted soul?

[ What the hell happened to your soul, Toki. Whether the Kotengu's supposed to know this or not doesn't matter, he wants to hear it in Toki's words. ]

I don't know! I mean, like I'm not sure if they took pieces of my soul or not because I don't remember like what I actually said to the daemon or what he said and he took my eye, so maybe that was enough, but he could have taken my soul, well not all of it because I wouldn't be able to make more contracts I don't think and I did with a fey giraffe and he probably has some of my soul too because he didn't take anything else and just wanted stories and an apology strudel, which I never baked for him because I forgot, so maybe both the daemon and the giraffe have pieces of my soul and maybe they don't and maybe there's none left for you at all, but maybe it's still completely in tact and you can have it if it is if you absolutely need a full, untainted soul, or I can maybe purify the rest of it and like fill the empty space with something that's equivalent to the soul or you can take other things like that daemon took an eye, but you don't want those now, but other parts!

[Toki claps his hands together and bows.]

Please take my soul and let me live here in your world forever, Kotengu-san!

No deal. Full, untainted souls only.

[ He circles around Toki, looking about the room at everybody else here. Can't be all of them, he thinks, unless a bunch of them have died since he remembers who are all there, but if they were dead then they'd be in this place as ghosts. ]

But you've got plenty of other souls here to choose from. Whose soul would you sell out, Tokidoki? For the sake of your own happiness.

I... No. They're not mine to give. I wouldn't even give you Kuroko's! I can only offer what belongs to me.

[He'll have to prepare himself to live his sad and pathetic life out in France, until the apocalypse.]

So that's where you draw the line, huh? What a good boy.

[ Yeah, looks like he's sealed his fate in France. ]

Curious, though. You would kill another for the sake of your happiness, but you will not offer their soul. Just what is the difference, Tokidoki? All those Shadows you've killed come from humans too. The Daitengu you kill have a life and a soul as well. Is it because the souls of your team are worth more? Because they're your friends? Would you offer up a stranger off the street?

They... they come from humans?

[He didn't realize that; what the Shadows are made of, where they come from. He may have been told, but it hadn't registered.]

I didn't want to kill the Daitengu at first... I wanted to take him to the bathhouse and talk about things, but like, that got vetoed...

[No matter what, someone dies here, someone doesn't get a happy ending. If he didn't know them, would he offer their souls? He likes to think he wouldn't, but in the back of his mind, he wants to. This is breaking him and his brain is melting.]

I just... want to be happy.

[He's crying again, loud sobs this time.]

[ Everything possibly could have been solved if they just took the Daitengu to the bathhouse and talked things out. There's still one Daitengu left. It's still possible.

Kano lets Toki cry. There's no point in saying things like "It's okay!" and "Don't worry!" because this is the reality Toki will be facing shortly, so that even though Kano could so easily take the reins of the conversation and steer it somewhere else, somewhere better for a last conversation, he does not. ]

Stu~pid. Happiness isn't a goal or endpoint, you know? It's sorta a... "in the moment" thing, like sadness, like the fear you're feelin' right now. It's okay to be a lil' short sighted! It's okay to do what you want, and walk away from stuff you don't like.

[ It's okay to run away and ditch and hide, it's okay to put yourself first. In this world that conspires against them, Toki does not have to save the world. ]

If it's just "in the moment", then... I've already had it, and I can't have it all the time. What is there to keep going for?

[If happiness isn't an ending, what is the point of living? He's lived long enough for those moments. Like experiencing sadness to know what being happy is, it works in the opposite way. Can he only go down from here? From the fleeting happy feelings he wants to preserve, when it can't be done? When it can't be permanent?]

For, like, the next happiness? It's something you're always chasing, but isn't that just fine? It's not like it's outta reach— you got married and you were happy and all that shit, right?

[ If Toki wants to just lie there and do nothing and be happy, he's fooling himself. Maybe he should become a monk and learn enlightenment if that's the route he wants to talk, but it still involves a hell of a lot of effort before the payout. ]

[Toki wants to quit chasing the happiness and have it just exist in this bubble.]

I was and I am sometimes, but I...

[The last Kotengu influence incident left doubts worming their way into his brain. He was happy, and now he's not. Now he's confused and sacred and he wants it all to stop. He wants to stop overthinking everything and worrying about securing some kind of future that isn't a nightmare. He wants to scream.

So he does. Piercing hysterical shrieks that will continue until he's out of breath.]

[ Oh boy! Okay. Where is Ala with her magic calming flute? She's not here, and Kano's version of Ala can only kill instead of turning Toki into a cute yappy dog, so Kano just sort of backs off with his hands up to let everybody else know that he's not the one attacking Toki or anything, this is just Toki being Toki. ]

Hey! Hey, can someone help me out here?

[ Oh my god, Kano, leave her husband alone. ]

[ Rei only woke up a few moments ago from passing out in the previous room so she has no idea that Toki was talking with Kano. For all she knows, that clearly suspicious person with blood everywhere might have done something, but she'll figure it out afterwards. She rushes to Toki first. ]

Tokidoki, it's me, it's Rei!

[ She tries to yell over his screaming so he knows that it's her before she takes his hands. She doesn't want to scare him by making him think that it's someone else. ]

[Even if he couldn't hear her voice, he knows her hands and holds onto them tightly. His screaming dies down into crying, and his grip loosens. He was doing okay in this dungeon, he'd thought. Talking to Kano again proved to be too much for him. Toki sinks to his knees to hug Rei. He's going to be useless when they fight the Kotengu.]

...He was never this worked up before. What the hell'd you do to him?

[ ig he'll bully Rei instead. Toki's never been so clingy back in France from what Kano's seen, but maybe he's like this in private? Can't really see him doing this with Yuya, though... Maybe he just didn't have anybody to comfort him— or, coddle him, really, because that's what this looks like to somebody who doesn't know what comfort is. ]

[Don't bully Rei. ):

Toki never was clingy with Kano, not physically or even verbally. But Kano was what he used to cling to; Kano's manufactured reality and getting lost in it. The distraction of it. And then Kano was gone, because Toki thought he wanted it.

Kano never saw him try to rip his eye out. Kano wasn't there when he was convinced his brain was literally on fire from one off-hand comment of Maverick's. Kano didn't see the website. Kano didn't know he jumped out a third story window because Ekkehardt asked him a question he couldn't answer. Kano didn't know he screamed like this in the hallway one day, until he was distracted by a stuffed cat thrust into his hands.

Kano was only there for pieces of it; when he freaked out in the theatre basement after drawing eyes all over himself, and "Kido" told him to paint things. The initial screaming after the roof when he saw Gon was a lycanthrope. The fish tank lid after the possessed doll. The eye drawings in the notebooks and the loft. Was there ever a calm moment?

Toki had no one in the position of comforter at the beginning, but eventually he had Maverick to cry on a few times, and Adelaide, and Jolyne. Yuya was always honest with him and never gave attention to his tantrums. Yuya would just cover his mouth and tell him to shut up when he screamed too much or rambled on in a panic. That worked too, and Yuya helped him with things. Though Toki cried on his roommate many times, it wasn't this level of emotional dependency. Maybe he's getting worse because Rei does coddle him and he doesn't have face things. Jolyne did that. Maverick eventually gave up. Adelaide never doubted his sanity once, and thought he was perfectly fine.

Is he regressing because he has room to? Who knows. Toki doesn't. But this has shown he really can't make an important decision after all. What happened? Was it the three days of Kotengu-induced panic that brought it all back? The shrine dungeon reenacting that memory? His post-surgery brain rerouting the electrical pathways to mimic familiar brainwave patterns? The thought of going back to his world?

Or is it just a very bad day?]

I-I didn't do anything. What did you say to him?

[ She doesn't sound sure about her response. She doesn't think that she's done anything wrong. This month has been really hard for Toki, but she's being trying hard to support him. Haven't they gotten closer as a result? It seemed like it, but whenever someone questions her, she starts to doubt. She's still not confident that she's a good wife, so it's easy to shake her. ]

[ But she shouldn't be asking Kano what he did because she's actually never met him asides from the time that he was a cat. She doesn't know anything about him so she shouldn't ask him what happened. She puts her focus back on Toki, wrapping one arm around him as she stokes his hair. Kano will be ignored because he's rude for bullying Toki and trying to bully her :/ ]

What did he say or do, Tokidoki?

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yokeye - 2020-01-31 14:59 (UTC) - Expand

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