OCTOBER EVENT PT 1

[citta]

OCTOBER EVENT PT1

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→ 10/3 Rain, rain, go away

As summer draws to a close and the season turns to autumn, the forest gradually starts to warm into golds and reds, starting from the mountains and working inwards towards the town. The first few drops of rain bring with them relief from the heat that had taken hold of the summer months, and the intermittent showers turn into constant downpours by the weekend. For the rest of the month, the rain is unrelenting, the sky cast in heavy grey clouds that refuse to part for the sun for even the briefest of moments, leaving October a month of constant darkness both night and day.

Without an ocean to drain into, the rainwater instead runs down the streets and drags dirt and debris from the forest along with it, ultimately collecting in the lake at the center of town and turning it muddy grey. The children have fun splashing in the puddles, until the worms and snails come crawling out and then there's more terrified shrieking than shouts of laughter, but it's kind of nice sitting by a window with a cup of hot tea while listening to the sound of pattering rain/screaming children outside. Only, the rain doesn't stop, worrying the townspeople enough that they start to talk about preparations for flooding. There really is no higher ground to move to, unless people want to trek all the way up to the mountains, so efforts are instead focused on keeping the water level controlled. Everybody is encouraged to pitch in filling and setting sandbags to build dams around the buildings to keep the water out, to donate non-perishable food and other emergency supplies to make sure there's enough to distribute to those who need them, and to take in what stray cats they're able to care for so that none of them are put in danger of the rushing water outside.

For the duration of the month, both the inn and the school are allowing people to stay in the second floor of the inn and the second story classrooms, free of charge. It's hard to say whether the ghosts in the inn are happy about all the extra company, with the wailing in between the walls getting louder as the month progresses, and some people say they hear giggling at times, which stops the moment they get closer. At the school, there are the Seven School Mysteries to contend with instead. They're all the typical things: the painting of the school founder whose eyes follow you around as you walk down the entrance hall, the bust in the art room that cries blood and stains the stone red, an anatomical model from the science lab that suddenly comes to life and chases people out of the room, the piano in the music room that plays by itself when nobody is in the room, a ghost haunting the bathrooms that locks all the doors when you really have to go, a goat man roaming the halls who chases and knocks anybody out cold if they aren't in a classroom between 4:00-4:05 PM, and ghostly hands that grab your wrists and ankles if you try to enter the gymnasium after sundown.

All these things are real. School's haunted.

→ 10/11-10/12 Paantu Festival

As the lake fills up, more water starts to slosh out of it than what drains in, contaminating the drinking water, causing the townspeople to fall ill, and sapping all the light and the heat from the days. It's never rained this hard and this long before, people are saying. The gods must be angry. Something must have happened or somebody must have done something to curse the town, and now everybody is suffering the consequences of it.

While some people sit around and hope for the best, others decide to take matters in their own hands and revive a forgotten tradition in an effort to save the town: the Paantu Festival. For these two days, several dozen Paantu are seen roaming the streets, humanoid forms covered in branches and leaves stuck onto their bodies with thick, sticky mud, wearing wooden masks over their faces and carrying walking sticks as they chase after anybody still wandering outside. The Paantu scoop mud off the ground and smear them on people's houses, the shops and the school and even the hospital doesn't get spared. It's difficult to get anywhere in town without being ambushed and having a handful of mud thrown at your face, especially with how wet and slippery the streets have become.

As the Paantu are meant to spread good luck and scare away evil spirits, it's ill advised to attack the creatures, although some little kids inadvertently do as they kick and scream and try to get away, and doing so causes a day of bad luck to befall the attacker. When unmasked, some of the Paantu are revealed to be villagers playing the roles, but other times, the Paantu transforms into a cackling demon that jumps out and tries to grab onto your body. These demons cannot be destroyed, but if you're able to remove them, either by force or by persuasion, they'll leave behind a gold coin as thanks for playing with them. Unfortunately, the townspeople aren't able to see the demon Paantu, so if mud hits them on the back of the head and you're the only one standing there, they can only blame one person and that person is you. Better run, punk.

Parents jokingly tell their kids that the Paantu will take them away if they misbehave, but as the last of the Paantu are caught and unmasked, it's found that some people have disappeared in the chaos, old and young alike. Even in the days after the festival, the mud gets washed away, but missing posters go up— including those for the owners of the occult shop so many of you rely on for income, and the shop is temporarily closed. So much for driving out bad luck.

→ 10/13-10/27 No, seriously, please go away

If anything, things just seem to get worse after the festival. With the lake saturated and nowhere else for the water to go, the town starts to flood, two feet by mid-month, with the water level rising exponentially higher until the town is drowning in eight feet of water by the end of the month, rendering all those sandbags useless. Although the water is largely still now instead of rushing towards the center of town, it's still mixed with the toxins from the lake and those who fall in or try to swim in it will eventually become ill, suffering chills and a fever and pressure in their chest that makes it difficult to breathe. Souji and Minato will be glad to have you over for tea any time to get rid of that poison, but unfortunately the tea doesn't help those who aren't Persona users. In order to make a tea that will help the townspeople, you'll have to help the Attendants gather the ingredients for it and fill their request.

On the 14th, the power goes out everywhere except the hospital, which has emergency generators, but those won't last forever either. In the following days, thunder roars in the distance, and lightning begins to flash across the sky, providing the only light now that both the sun and the moon are hidden above the clouds. By some miracle, the lightning never hits the town and electrocutes everybody in it, but it does hit the mountains from time to time, breaking the rock and causing avalanches to fall and smother the forest. At times, little pebbles of hail fall from the sky, and other times, it's frogs and fish that plop down into the water despite there being no ocean in Hirajiro.

Throughout the month, rain continues to fall even during Lockdown. The moon still cannot be seen, but in the area around the lake, faint blue light glows underwater to guide people towards the dungeon, and no Shadows leave this dungeon or the school dungeon to swim through town. For those taking shelter in the school, it still transforms into the previous dungeon during Lockdown, spitting people out onto a random floor and separating those who were together when midnight strikes. In these two dungeons, characters may find some reprieve from the rain, but none of the floors have a sun or a moon to provide light, and it becomes very humid. Yeah. You thought the fourth floor of the lake dungeon was hell already, but now it's 122°F/50°C with 100% humidity.

→ MOD NOTES

⬥ We're doing great, guys. In order to fight the lake dungeon boss, 2 more coin threads must be completed and submitted by 10/14.
⬥ To determine the outcome of the boss battle, a minimum of 10 threads across the entire player base from September's dungeon post is required, with a maximum of 2 threads turned in per player, containing at least 5 comments for each character. These threads may not overlap with coin threads but may be threads started in September or October. The deadline for defeating the boss is 10/31.
⬥ The raining and flooding will continue through the month until 10/27, with part 2 of the event going up on 10/28, but the pouring rain will noticeably lessen once the boss is defeated and the ofuda is returned to the castle. At the worst of the flooding, single story buildings in town will be almost fully submerged, but the water level does not extend as high in the forest and both the castle and shrine will be left untouched by the flood during the month, although they'll still get rained on.
⬥ This month, the full moon (despite not being visible) occurs on 10/12-10/14, and Personas may behave strangely and disobey orders. This is an optional mechanic.

Comments

[suddenlybees]

[ With the range that he has, Kano doesn't have to move, and he doesn't really need to see, either, since it's just a little red dot he has to keep in the back of his mind to maintain that illusion.

He lets Lying Cat prowl and approach the dancing light, but the moment she pounces on it, he'll move the light again— this time not across the floor, but hovering above it, like a bright red firefly. ]

[wellcomer]

[what the fuck

Well. It's definitely not line of sights, then. That's what the rational part of her brain observes while the rest of it goes GET IT, KILL IT, SWAT IT DOWN, which is just what she tries to do.]

[suddenlybees]

[ A cat's a cat...

Kano bites at his bottom lip to keep quiet, making it so that every time Lying Cat catches the light, it splits into two, and it'll keep multiplying just like that until there's too many dots for him to keep track of, or Lying Cat gets that something's up and stops swatting at them. ]

[wellcomer]

[That point comes disappointingly swiftly, and Lying Cat backs away from the lights with a hiss. If attacking just makes more enemies and distractions, there's not much point in continuing. Instead, she decides to ignore them and go back to what initially caught her interest -- this rude, amused boy.]

[suddenlybees]

[ It's a rude, amused, and really stupid boy who should've taken the opportunity to run away when Lying Cat was distracted, instead of sitting there continuing to amuse himself.

Hm.

He tosses a ketchup packet down onto the castle floor, like it's a peace offering but more likely a trap. ]

[wellcomer]

[Boy... She doesn't care about ketchup. She'll step carelessly over it and she closes in on him, humming deep in her chest, prepared to investigate this boy with a big ol' sniff. Unless he manages to stop her, she's coming right up to him, and snufflesnorting all in his hair.

Like many cats, her breath is hot and smells like garbage.]

[suddenlybees]

[ Oh... Kano will have to retrieve that ketchup packet before some crow runs off with it. He's not very fast, and he's not very strong, but until he's bleeding he doesn't believe he's in danger yet, scrunching up his nose when Lying Cat gets into his face. He smells like rainwater and mud, for the most part, masking whatever he would normally smell like. ]

Ew, gross~

[ Does whether it's a lie depend on what Kano's thinking (bc yeah, it's gross) or if Lying Cat really is gross? Either way, Kano shuffles back a little, closer to the wall he'd been using his illusion to inch forward bit by bit when Lying Cat isn't looking. ]

[wellcomer]

[He's allowed to have his own opinion, she just knows that while he isn't lying, he's still wrong. She's fabulous. Not even covered in gore or anything right now, either!

Still... The boy was seeming harmless enough, and while he held a certain tension in his muscles, he wasn't panicking. Just what is he doing here, in this place with dancing red lights that multiplied when touched, dropping water on people?

There's a sound a lot like a sigh, and then she bumps her head into the side of his. Stop this slow crawl, she's not here to hurt you, dummy.]

[suddenlybees]

[ He's hiding all his panic, from the hammering heart that speeds up when Lying Cat approaches to bump heads, to the darting eyes checking all the escape routes out of the castle even if he has to leap from the second floor, and takes the persona of a lazy boy who likes dropping water on people just because it's funny and relatively harmless since he's only doing what the rain will do in the next five minutes.

He's not being mauled, so everything is good? Good.

He doesn't go to pet Lying Cat or anything, though, since he's never been a big animal person and they've never been very keen on him either, but he does stare quite a lot at the cat while pretending not to. ]

Okay! Well, I'm su~per busy and all, so I'm just gonna go now...

[ He's obviously got too much time on his hands, but jumping off the second story is the fastest escape route so he'll just take that one. ]