DUNGEON INTERLUDE

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→ 10/16 Lockdown

As of the lockdown phase on the 16th of October, Terrence Nowell has gone missing. He seems to have vanished without a trace--the trace of the cinnamon smell that he always gives off is nowhere to be found. Something is a little different about this Lockdown period. Despite how it's the middle of the month, a strong and powerful wind will flow towards the residential area, where it leads people to a very dark alleyway that's hard to see through. The wind seems to stop at an open sewer hole that's still draining whatever water that's left around it, but it seems that there's less water here than everywhere else. Was that there before? No, but it's there now, and it'll be there every time Lockdown occurs. Watch your step, lest you fall in... For those who don't like following the wind, they'll find themselves battered in the head with the occasional flying cats. Given enough time during the lockdown, these cats will pretty much infest every corner of Hirajiro with all their incessant meowing and rainbow trails as they fly around. Though, of course, they'll always be gone when Lockdown is lifted.

→ 1st Floor

If you dare to venture into the sewer hole, whether you fell in or took the ladder on the way down, you'll eventually find the floor that is covered in thick smoke. It can't be blown off due to the sheer amount there is. Luckily, the Velvet Room portal is right there at the foot of the ladder for easy access. The sky appears to be blue, but the weather feels strangely stagnant for some reason. The scenery might as well be some rendition of candyland, with lots of sweets everywhere used as building structure, a long path made of taffy over the small hills that doesn't seem to stick onto your shoes, lollipops for trees, cotton candy for bushes... you get the idea. You can try to eat the sweets, but they all taste like dusty metal and don't break off. It seems like a relatively happy place, but once you start looking for the stairwell that leads to the next floor, you can't seem to find it.

Things aren't always what they seem to be...

SOMNIUM
Type SHADOW	Resists NONE	Weak NUCLEAR
In the vast candyland, perhaps you'll be lucky enough to come across a fox-shaped shadow that has a mask over it with the chime of a bell. These are very small, quick, annoying to hit and very evasive. If your Persona's agility can surpass 10 or above, you'll be able to catch it or cast an AoE spell to cover for your lack of speed. It's fairly weak, so it'll most likely be killed in one or two shots. Only one will appear on the entire floor at a time. They respawn 5 minutes after the death of the previous one. More details below. Small yellow bells and black fox masks can be collected as loot.

MORSUS
Type SHADOW	Resists WIND	Weak FIRE, LIGHT
So, those flying cats that you saw? Once you kill a Somnium, the illusion breaks, revealing their true forms as bat-like Shadows. They come to attack in swarms, only casts Life Drain and Spirit Drain, and often perform those two skills all at once to suck the the majority of life and spirit out of a target in one go. Dangerous. They are also easy to kill, but you better have your AoE spells handy or you might get overwhelmed with sudden loss of HP and SP from sheer numbers. However, the above only applies when the illusion is broken. When under the guise of nyancats, they only smack people by running into them. Small clear pouches of sparkling rainbow glitter (as nyancat) or torn bat wings (as bats) can be collected as loot.

Once the illusion is shattered by killing a Somnium, the characters will realize that they had been walking through occasional giant puddles of blood on the ground when the smoke clears from the ground, the sky is red, and all the little structures of candy were wrecked buildings akin to a post-apocalyptic setting. However, the illusion rebuilds itself after five minutes of the fox shadow's death, turning the entire floor into candyland again with flying nyancats in which characters are forced to go hunt for the respawned Somnium again. It's a very vast floor.

During the five-minute window of the broken illusion, characters will be able to find the entrance to the stairwell to the next floor. When the illusion returns after five minutes, the stairwell entrance disappears and reappears in a different location when the illusion is broken again. That's not the only problem with the stairwell...

To get to the next floor, each character has to answer a very personal and guilt tripping question that will make them feel absolutely terrible after. The barrier will come in the form of an invisible wall that cannot be broken until the answer is given. The answer doesn’t necessarily have to be objectively true, but it can’t be a lie. The question will be announced out loud in the nearby characters' heads, but it will be addressed to the character themselves when asking. If in a group, the walls are stacked upon each other and each wall will break after everyone present in the group has answered their own personal questions. If everyone in the group hasn't answered their questions in five minutes, it's back to fox hunting for you guys.

The wall only needs to be broken once by a character. It won’t reform the next time they come back to the dungeon.

→ 2nd Floor

On the next floor, you will be greeted by the red sky, even darker than the previous floor's. You stand on a very sturdy white square pillar, about 20ft x 20ft in size. When you look forward, you can see similar huge square pillars alternating in white and black that have risen from the void, all apart at a set distance away from each other, but it's very clear that you can't make it by jumping. To get to the stairwell to the next floor, you either need to have some method of air transportation to get to there safely, or take the intended method.

The intended method from getting to pillar to pillar is kicking a can off the corner of the pillar, which makes a transparent skinny bridge to the next pillar that disintegrates very quickly over time. Only one person can cross a bridge at a time, unless you want to risk having people fall into the void. The can respawns at the same corner after the previous bridge fully disintegrates.

Those who fall off the pillars will fall unconscious and wake up in the exit of the dungeon (next to the sewer hole) with 1 HP and 0 SP and inflicted with a Forget debuff that lasts 15 minutes. Players have the choice to make their character forget whatever they want along with their Persona being skill sealed, whether that’s an important body function like breathing or a precious memory, or something trivial like what they ate for dinner last night. They’ll regain whatever they lost 15 minutes after waking up.

BLACK RAVEN
Type Shadow	Resists WIND	Weak ELECTRICITY
Remember me? These pesky Raven Shadows are back, lanterns and all. They mostly move together in huge flocks now instead of being separated. They shoot gusts of winds in an attempt to blow characters off the pillars or stick to their usual divebombing tactic. They sometimes flock around Alt-Vassago. Feathers and lanterns can be collected as loot.

ALT-VASSAGO
Type F.O.E.	Nulls PHYSICAL	Weak LIGHT
This strange demonic being riding a gator are on top of every black pillar. He is the F.O.E. of this dungeon. At first, he will only move to push the characters off the pillars. However, if you attack it, whether it hits or misses, it inflicts a Rage debuff on itself and ferociously attacks you and try to push you off. A single physical hit from it will probably knock you out in one shot if your endurance is 9 and lower. It has a ton of HP, so it's best to avoid the fight entirely and quickly move to the next pillar. However, if you need to buy some time, please take advantage of its messy rage debuff to lure and trick it into falling off the pillar. There will be one minute until the next one respawns on the same pillar, so you better get off the pillar fast. It also has a tendency to repeat "kill them all" in a very creepy voice when under the Rage debuff.

NOCEO
Type SHADOW	Repels LIGHT	Weak DARK, WIND
These smog shadows take on a humanoid shape, but their forms fizzes out often like static. They move slow like aimless zombies and stick together in hordes and respawn very often. They constantly have smog coming out of where their mouths are supposed to be. They're also very weak, but tends to cast Brainwash debuff very often so the characters can fight for them. They also tend to make a hideously loud emergency siren sound when dying or falling off the pillars. They're also bunched up a lot in the last several pillars before the stairwell to the next floor. Maybe flying was a better option after all. A small, black, still-beating heart can be collected as loot.

Just like the first floor, this stairwell has an invisible wall as well. Same things apply here, except you have all the time in the world... too bad you're on the same black pillar with all the Noceos and one Alt-Vassago. Better tell your friends to hurry it up before you get brainwashed or killed.

→ 3rd Floor

Once you finally arrive at the third floor, there is only a blinding, narrow, white room. It feels more accurate to say it might be a slightly wide corridor. It may be difficult to see, because of the absence of color on the walls. However, there is blood everywhere on the floor. The source is a humongous, tipped over blood container off to the side. The room reeks of the smell. Shadow Terry is at the opposite end of the room with his gold eyes and behind him is a low cage where the real Terry is trapped in with his powers sealed. There is no trace of the cinnamon smell whatsoever in this room. There seems to be another door behind where the Shadow is, marred with plain visible scratch marks with little blood here and there.

There's also a familiar melody (0.25x speed) for those who have heard it before that seems to echo, almost as if fading away, but it never quite leaves.

Shadow Terry tends to look slightly different than the Terry everyone knows aside from his eye color. He has a sharper look, but right now, it's hard to see. He's kneeling next to the cage that Terry is trapped in and quietly cries. When Shadow Terry hears you coming in, he turns to you, looking a little desperate from where he is when he sees you for the first time.

"Please help. I want Terrence to accept me."

→ Notes

⬥ There will be a time limit on subduing the Shadow. Terry needs to drink blood to extend his lifespan, which he hasn't done in a while, so characters will only have until the end of the 23rd (IC and OOC, 11:59PM EST) before Terry falls into a pseudo-death coma state. If characters manage to subdue his Shadow before that happens, they'll have a chance to persuade him into accepting the Shadow. There will also be a chance that Terry won't accept it, depending on how the persuasion goes. A new top-level will go up on the 24th if the Shadow hasn't been accepted by then. A note on any late Shadow interactions are here!
⬥ Since Shadow Terry and Dark Vassago are hard to deal with, characters are encouraged to fight, retreat, and try to fight them multiple times.
⬥ Since IC dates are very important, please include them at the start of each thread when posting under the Shadow thread.
⬥ Threads from this dungeon post can serve as Dungeon requirements for AC.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I guess I should have expected something different. Catch.

[ And so, Kano's reward is an incendiary grenade. No, she's not setting him on fire (yet). It's for his use. ]

Heh? Huh?

[ Kano catches the grenade but fumbles with it, because he can't be sure that it won't explode in his face. Just in case, he holds it at arm's length, and waits for death.

...

It refuses to come to him this time too. ]

What am I doing with this? If it's blowing stuff up, you can do that yourself can't you? Want to join my baseball team?

My pitching is terrible.

[ Uh-huh. ]

And it's my reward to you for your terrible answer.

[ And look, if Kano really wants death to come at him, 45 can deliver it. Just gotta ask. She looks at the nearby black pillar that the wall should be at and she just. Looks so exasperated at it for a second. She still can't get through it because she's still locked into lying for an eternity and a half.

Malphas flies around for a bit, casts Frei on an Alt-Vassago and watches him kill all the Noceos in the way to where Malphas is, but he's flying near another pillar, so Alt-Vassago doesn't watch where he's going and just falls off the black pillar. lol. Maybe he can gain easy exp like this. ]

[ Aw. Kano is desperately in need of a good pitcher for his team, so it's too bad.

He can accept that his answer is terrible, though, and tries to jam it into his pants pocket instead of his jacket ones, because if his "reward" has anything to do with exploding, he can stand to lose a leg but not his pocket junk. Turning his head to follow 45's gaze, Kano watches as Malphas teases that F.O.E. Wow, and people were having a tough time against it, too.

Black smoke dances around Kano's legs and he looks down before rolling his eyes. ]

Yeah, yeah, you want to play too, right Ala? Go out there and have fun! I bet we can clear this floor in a couple minutes~

[ Mist becomes a dragon doing loops in the air before taking flight over the pillars, looking around for a weaker Shadow that's out of the way, because she isn't very good at fighting yet. Which is fine. Because Kano shoves his hands into his pockets and rolls back one of his shoulders— it's been aching since he got slammed around back there— and the entire floor fills out, smooth white all across the dungeon to replace those pillars. Watch your step now... The Alt-Vassagos and Noceos lumber right off the pillars, unable to see the edges. ]

[ Malphas looks down at the ground and tries to stand on it, but sees that his foot talon things phase through. He immediately pulls his leg back. It's so weird!! 45 doesn't move from where she is and watches the others disperse and fall, because they're not aware of the boundaries. There's a lot of sirens going off because the Noceos are falling though... ]

Edited 2019-10-20 04:31 (UTC)

[ Maybe they'll shut up if they fall deep enough into the void...

As fun as Ala's having swooping around everywhere, the sirens are annoying enough that Kano layers another illusion over the previous, causing the ground to start crumbling, from the wall side over towards them nearer the stairs. The Shadows run away in order to avoid falling off, but all that does is sweep them off the pillars that are still there. Like an arm clearing all the pieces off a chessboard, it's game over. ]

[ Malphas is just in the air thinking, "wow I'm so glad I have wings" right now so he just watches them all fall off. He thinks it's pretty funny and 45 continues to watch on. Illusions are a pretty neat trick, causing discord in places where they shouldn't be.

So many Noceos fall over, but so many of them respawn in their place ten seconds after they die, resuming their slow crawl as if they're zombies. ]

Let me know when it's too tiring to keep up~

[ Man, this really is a pain, isn't it? Kano can sweep back and forth all day and it'll just be like this, so he has the ground crumble entirely so that everything is a black void. It's not much different than making the entire room solid, except staring down into the voice comes with an uneasy feeling that usually keeps things rooted due to fear. ]

If it's this sort of stuff, I can keep it up all day, but I don't want to.

[ It'll be so boring... The darkness goes ahead and envelops the entire room, from the floor to the ceiling to all four walls, everything held suspended in pitch black nothingness. ]

So what's your grand mater plan for getting rid of 'em? It's not like we need to kill everything anyways?

Hm? Did I say that?

[ Nah. She's just here to collect loot. She gets Malphas to gather more lanterns, feathers, and more beating hearts. Pleasant. ]

...Soooooo, we're going to get rid of 'em without killing everything?

[ 45 is the one shooting Shadows down from the sky, okay, what else is he supposed to think she's here for? Collecting look requires killing, or if you're like Kano you can take the vulture route and just pick up leftovers. ]

[ She was originally going to kill them to get them out of the way, but Kano doesn't want to go to the third floor and he certainly doesn't need help. Not to mention she doesn't see anyone else, so... loot collecting time. ]

It's not like this is stress relief or anything. You shouldn't rest and keep it up so that every single one of these can die however you want.

[ ... That's probably the longest lie she's said so far. ]

[ ...Why is this. Kano heaves a mock sigh and shakes his head, turning the floor into a void of space with little pinpoint of light scattered here and there. It looks very much like the view outside the Velvet Room window, an expansion of the Sea of Souls. ]

That's no good~ The inflection, Itsuki, the inflection! You gotta pay attention to that sorta stuff! Like this: "It's not like is stress relief or anything..."

[ He copies her voice exactly, but slides a disdainful scoff in towards the end where it trails off, and the entire sentence drips of sarcasm. This is how you're supposed to speak to others to get them to know you mean the exact opposite of what you're saying. It's much less complicated than waiting for people to figure out that you can only lie, because people (Minato) are stupid and they won't get it. ]

Got that? Repeat after me! "It's not like is stress relief or anything..."

[ Walking anywhere during the illusion is dangerous, so 45 continues to stay put. She'll reload her magazine with rubber bullets. Her gun may automatically convert her bullets to deal almighty damage, but rubber bullets will hurt less. Probably.

She has that familiar look in her eyes again, Kano... ]

Aaaaaaaaahh! Don't shoot!!!

[ Kano decides never to help anybody ever again. He should just shove 45 off the edge of the pillar to save himself, but instead he gets Ala to give him a lift so he can escape through the stairs. You wanted him to go to the third floor, right?! All you had to do was force him at gunpoint!!

He's going to avoid getting killed by Itsuki and instead get killed by Terry, is what Kano thinks because I guess Rio and Minato just never tell anybody that Terry's already been saved. Literally nobody else knows, great job, team. ]

[open] there will always be a tomorrow

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→ 10/16 Lockdown

→ 1st Floor

→ 2nd Floor

→ 3rd Floor

→ Notes

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