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OCTOBER EVENT PT 1

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was, but like I'm not going to school here!

[No one can make him go to another class ever again. He laughs, thinking of all the times he ran away from school back in Tokyo, and then his consistent absenteeism in France, despite living on campus. This is where he ended up, so he didn't need to learn anything anyway. Those were all good decisions after all.]

Cats are strange that way, but they all have their own personalities. I think she should stay here, with the rest of them. So she can be free. We freed her from that cage in the shelter, and well... now it's even better for her.

[Kuroko is currently waiting patiently for food, not used to the feeding frenzy the other cats seem to participate in yet.]

I never... I didn't really take care of her, you know? Yuya did. My roommate. I played with her and bought her little catnip mice and things and talked to her, but... I shouldn't be responsible for her here either.

[He finally gets the first can open and throws up his hands in triumph, flinging the can top into the crowd of cats.]

[ Kido makes a distressed noise in the back of her throat before diving for that can top. The cats yowl and scatter, leaving her to stumble on the floor picking it up but thankfully without stepping on any tails. ]

Be more careful!!

[ AAAAAAAA!!!!! She had a lot of encouraging words she was going to say, but they're all lost to her now. Thanks for proving your point, Toki; he should absolutely not be responsible for Kuroko, but guess what? He is. ]

Anyways, she's your cat, isn't she? She's your friend— your family! You can't just abandon her because you think she'll do better without you, because she won't! So she's your responsibility whether you like it or not!

Sorry!

[Kuroko would be better off without him, though. He can't agree with Kido on that, and he has to leave now. He gets up from the table, grabbing the edge of it too tightly.]

Keeping something around that you're not going to take care of doesn't do them any good.

[He knows that first hand. Kuroko's just a cat, but he can't do that to her.]

I have to go now.

[He leaves the room quickly, trying not to cry, even though Kido had said it was okay to.]

[ Don't just run away?? Kido makes sure the can is emptied out and thrown into the trash can before wading her way out of the room to find Toki. ]

TOKIDOKI RIKUGOU, YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!!

[He's half-way down the hall by the time she shouts. He wasn't expecting that, and he doesn't know what to do, so he runs for the stairwell. He's going to the roof. It's fine.]

[ He's not allowed to die until she kills him first. Kido can sprint as fast as she wants, but she's already so far behind, and Toki has the initiative because he knows where he's going. But she doesn't need to be fast; Kido calls for her Persona, and the ghost cat is the fastest one there is, able to phase through walls and does so to get to Toki.

Nekogami shoots dream needles at Toki's back, which will probably hurt, but also has the chance of making him fall asleep so he won't remember the pain anyways. ]

[He gets the door open to the stairs, but before he can take another step there's a short stabbing pain in his back. That place halfway up that can never be reached without dislocating an arm. He doesn't know what it was, and doesn't have much time to consider it, because he's suddenly very tired. He manages to get down on his knees before losing consciousness and slumping over in the doorway.]

[ Small mercies that Toki hadn't tumbled all the way down the stairs if he'd managed to make it up them.

It's sure been a long time since Kido's had to drag unconscious bodies around, but she catches up to where Toki is and slings his arm over her shoulders so she can haul him up onto his feet. He's taller, so she'll just have to sort of drag him along to the nearest empty classroom and then dump him on the floor because she can't lift him onto a chair or anything. So it's Toki on the floor and her with her head down on the desk next to him, waiting for him to wake up again. ]

[Almost ten minutes later, he opens his eyes slowly and he's... lying on the floor. It's not a strange thing for him to wake up to, but he doesn't remember what happened. They were in the back room with the cat food and then... Oh. But he was going to the roof? This isn't the roof. He sees Kido at the desk, who he remembers running from. He sighs; it's so confusing.]

Hana-chan?

[ Oh my god, he did hit his head after all. It could have been when he'd fallen on the ground, and had nothing to do with stairs at all. Kido looks rather guilty as she gets off her seat to crouch down next to Toki, extending her hand so she can pull him up. ]

Hey, how are you feeling? You, um... fell. Back there.

[ Technically, yes, if she doesn't mention any personal involvement. ]

[He takes her hand, but he's even more confused.]

I fell!? Like... in the hallway!?

[Maybe he did. He was kind of panicking. He probably blacked out.]

You know what, nevermind! I, yeah, that happened. Sure. Thank for... dragging me in here I guess? I don't think anything would have happened out there unless the cats are hungry enough to eat human flesh... They're not, are they!?

Wha— No way, they're not! Don't joke about stuff like that!

[ Do not plant ideas into her brain about man-eating cats, because Kido looks freaked out and now she's never going to see the cats same again. What if one day she's too slow getting out the cat food and one of them chomps off her fingers? ]

They're fine and you're fine! I just didn't want to leave you lying around!

[What if, indeed.]

You never know!

[But then he recognizes her expression and he tries to backtrack.]

I mean, like just hypothetically because you know they're not actual zombie cats and they're perfectly normal and they're not at all going to take over the town and just keep appearing out of nowhere until they plan to strike when you're down to the last can of spam!

[ Toki backtracks the wrong way and Kido doesn't want to hear this— cats shouldn't even like spam, but WHAT IF??! and she can't get that out of her head, how there's just so many cats here and they're all concentrated in this building and if one day the flood gets to be bad enough and there's no more food left, they're all going to get eaten by zombie cats. ]

Shut up! Shut up! Stop talking!!

[ She tries to cover Toki's mouth with her hands, shut uuuuuuuupp ]

[Kido's even more freaked out, and Toki must have said something wrong. He mutters an apology into her hand, but the damage is already done. Images of zombie cats are hard to erase once they've been planted. He pries her hands off his mouth, but doesn't let go of them. Toki tries to give her a reassuring look, but he might not be capable of that.]

Hana-chan, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't... I just say things that come to me and I didn't mean to upset you. They're just stupid thoughts and it's not really going to happen.

[ Reassuring look or not, Kido averts her eyes so she doesn't see it, trying hard not to cry because she can't wipe away the tears if Toki's got hold of her hands like this. But the apology does calm her down, and the words, sort of, even if she can't decide whether to believe them or believe Toki's just saying them to pacify her. ]

I'm not upset...

[ If he can believe her, with clenched teeth and looking on the verge of tears, anyways. But yeah! They're just stupid thoughts! Fake stupid thoughts like with Terry and his stupid goat man that he was just trying to scare her with, regardless of the fact that it was actually real, and this is like that too. Fake. Not real. It's still hard to forget, though. ]

Of course it's not really going to happen. I know that. I'm not stupid.

[Toki has doubts that she's not upset, but he chooses to take it at face value. He releases her hands and nods.]

No, you're not. But it's understandable to worry about something like that if you were- worrying about it I mean, not if you were stupid- because there's always that like half a percent chance that it will happen no matter how unlikely!

[Oh shit.]

I mean that in this instance in particular it's absolutely not going to happen and there's not even a minuscule chance at all, but in general there's usually a tiny chance, so nothing can be disregarded as impossible except zombie cats because we've established that exact scenario is one thing in which the percentages of general other things don't apply!

[ Half a percent is still 1 out of 200 and putting it like that makes it seem like a pretty good chance of anything catastrophic happening. Absolutely anything can happen besides zombie cats, huh? Being in a place like Hirajiro, so much weird shit has happened, that Kido's thrown up her hands and went "okay, this might as well be happening" more than once, so she should be able to accept zombie cats, except she doesn't want to.

Ugh. ]

I know you're just trying to make me feel better, so thanks. But I already know one zombie cat, who might not actualy be a cat, so maybe that's the half a percent.

There's already one zombie cat!? There'll be an epidemic!!!

No!! It's not contagious—-

[ Is it? Kido doesn't know. There's a lot more people turning into zombies than there were a couple months ago, that's for sure. ]

Well, maybe it is, but we don't know for sure yet! Just shut up and calm down! It's not going to happen!!

Maybe it is!?

[That is not the thing to say to get him to calm down. There's so many cats in the back room of the auditorium and what are they plotting back there?]

Why do you keep feeding the zombie cats!? You're giving them exactly what they want! When the food runs out and they have no more use for you, you're going first!!!

They're not zombies yet!! If we don't feed them, they'll die and become zombies that much sooner! We'd just be speeding up the process!! But if we feed them, won't they like us more and eat us last??!

[ ZOMBIE CATS AREN'T EVEN REAL but what if they are in the near future?? they have to go in with a plan. ]

Yes! They'll keep us around because we stop them from being zombies by not letting them die...

[It's perfectly logical.]

W-will they be mad we only opened one can of food?

[ Yes, it makes sense and Kido will stick with that too. ]

Well, uh... We also gave them spam, right? That must be a treat they haven't had before, so maybe that'll curry more favor. Yeah! Good thinking, Tokidoki!

It was, wasn't it?

[At least he's not panicking anymore, but now he's... smirking.]

Few people appreciate my true genius like you do, Hana-chan~!

premise ⬥ taken ⬥ faq ⬥ navigation

→ 10/3 Rain, rain, go away

→ 10/11-10/12 Paantu Festival

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

→ MOD NOTES

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