[open; 11/11 - 11/15] Personal Shadow Event

[reveilation]

WRATH OF BONGOGAMI

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→ Lake dungeon, 2nd floor

No wind from outside blows towards the lake, no other indication that there's any reason to be down here. Sleet falls endlessly from above on the second floor, scattering ice pellets across the frozen ground and sticking to any wet surface from the passage out of the lake, and the sub-zero temperatures seem to have plummeted even lower. The Shadows on this floor seem constantly agitated these days, and several have peeled off from the main group to crowd around a new hole that has opened up in the middle of the area, but will ignore those who simply want to bypass them to get to the next floor.

ONIKUMA
Type Shadow	Resists Ice, Physical	Weak None
Giant Onikuma loom around the hole trying to swat anybody nearby down into it, whether Persona user or Shadow. Strong and durable, these Shadows are difficult to defeat, and their roars cause anybody who hears it to become Enraged, lashing out indiscriminately until calmed down by a status healing spell or item, or are knocked out. Indestructible claws can be collected as loot.

ARCTOS
Type Shadow	Resists Ice	Weak Fire
Packs of Arctos also mill around the hole, hunting in groups with fangs that Charm their foes with the slightest nick, causing them to fight on the Arctos' side while the Arctos attack from behind. Rather than trying to drive people into the hole, they're simply out for blood. Fangs that cause Charm, and small gems that heal any status ailment once can be collected as loot.

It would be advisable to stay away from the Shadows, but if, for whatever reason, you fight your way to the hole they're protecting, you're faced with a pit five feet wide and lined with spikes of stone and ice that protrude from the walls and jut out towards the center. Unlike the ice elsewhere on the floor, these spikes cannot be melted with fire, and the sleet continuously raining down makes them slick and hard to grasp. The hole is only thirty feet deep, but unless you climb down carefully, there's the danger of slipping and being skewered.

→ 2nd floor, ???

Upon reaching the bottom of the pit, you find yourself in a large cavern filled with floating doors, sets of stairs leading up to each one and seemingly infinite from the way the place stretches on without boundary. The area is just as frigid as the space above ground, but is lit by blue-white flames that provide no heat with their light. Touching the flames causes unprotected skin to blister similar to frostbite, and staying too long around them will sap your strength and life energy, but while they float around the cavern and are drawn towards people, they're slow enough to be outrun.

Each door looks exactly the same, some accessible from the stairwells, while some hang in mid-air and must be flown to in order to open them. Each door that is opened, there is nothing but empty space behind it, nothing more than a door frame with false promise of an exit. Because Ichi has great ideas, there is a small chance of opening a door and getting drawn into one of the memory or fear floors like in the shrine dungeon. It doesn't matter which doors are opened, in what order, or if the same one is slammed open and closed multiple times; on the 107th door that's opened on each given night, you can finally see through to the other side, at a pure white and empty room with Nekogami sitting at the center, tail swishing back and forth, the tips of his fur dark grey like soot. At the very back of the room, Shadow Kido is seated upon a throne of ice, staring back with golden eyes.

In your head, you hear her voice, soft and slow: "What would you sacrifice to get her back?"

There is nothing preventing you from walking through the door without another word. But when approaching an Emperor and a cat god, perhaps you should follow tradition and make an offering.

You know what? Fuck it. As of 11/13, the room is covered with copious amounts of blood and there is no barrier to talk to the Shadow and nobody is allowed to sacrifice anything wtf. She's still there on her throne, but she has zombie Rei on her lap and Nekogami on Rei's lap and everything sucks.

→ NOTES

⬥ ICly, this dungeon will appear on 11/11 and the event is expected to conclude by 11/15, although the dungeon itself will remain until the end of the month. OOCly there is no deadline for getting Kido to accept her Shadow, but if the Shadow is killed at any time even once, the end result will be ego death. If this happens, Kido will not be able to be revived and will remain a zombie for the rest of the game.
⬥ Character must engage with Nekogami first before he will step aside to allow passage to Kido's Shadow, but there are ways to convince him without fighting depending on 1) who the character is, 2) their first action, and 3) whether and what they choose to "sacrifice."
⬥ The "sacrifice" may be physically offered or spoken out loud, but Nekogami will take whatever is offered, whether it is something tangible or conceptual. Depending on the nature of the sacrifice, Nekogami may be appeased and easier to reason with, or enraged and prompted to begin the fight. Sacrifices may or may not be returned at the end of the battle.
⬥ The toplevel to interact with Shadow Kido will be unscreened after the first time Nekogami is either defeated, or convinced to let a character through. Shadow Kido will only interact with those recognized by Nekogami, either through a thread or otherwise discussed. This is to establish how the interaction with Nekogami will affect the interaction with Shadow Kido.
⬥ Kido will unavailable until her Shadow is either 1) persuaded to let her go and be accepted, or 2) killed, resulting in an ego death.
⬥ This month, the full moon occurs on 11/11 - 11/13, so... haha.

Comments

[reveilation]

[ Nekogami meows in response, not moving from where he's lying, but his tail stops swishing and his ears turn to the side, over at the Shadow behind him. It's an uneasy gesture, but not at Akira directly. It's Akira and the Shadow that concerns him; Nekogami is here merely to play gatekeeper.

All he's ever wanted to do was keep Kido safe, and even Terry recognizes this even if he doesn't get everything else. But as of right now, the best way to keep Kido safe is if the Shadow takes over. By shifting attention over to the Shadow, Nekogami needs Akira to know:

This is why he's doing this. This will keep Kido safe. Prove him wrong. ]

[infiltrationtools]

What Kido wanted was a knight. A perfect knight who would cocoon her away from harm. So you became that for her.

[He's leaned back a bit, sitting now more than he is bowing.]

And she made the Shadow, too, because the Shadow can be the one to live without fears or pain or feelings. And the whole wretched world will never reach Kido, because of the walls upon walls upon walls built around her.

... Well, we all want that, don't we? [There's no use denying it. He wants it too.] We all want the tower so high and so strong that no evil can ever get through, and no act of man or God can strike it down, and we'll never be sad again. It sounds so beautiful.

[Symbolism relevant.]

But... you see the problem, right, Nekogami? You lose so much living that way. You're cut off from everything, good or bad, and you just stew in the wounds you already took. Forever.

She won't be able to talk to anyone, she won't ever be able to move on or get better. She can't ever make new memories, meet new friends, she can't have any meaningful connections with anyone. She can't experience any of the good that exists in this world, and no one can experience all of the huge amount of good that exists in her.

... Maybe I'm the worst person to say this. Maybe I need to take my own advice. Just... don't do that to her. Please.

[Akira sounds a little bit like he's begging, towards the end. He's jumping to a lot of conclusions here, and if he's wrong, this could be the end of the line. His mind is completely dead silent, every trick he has up his sleeve has been laid out as sacrifice, and he might just die here again. But... well. Living on the other side of that wall for so long, using everything he just gave up as barricades to keep it standing, if there's any chance Kido might be headed the same way...]

[reveilation]

[ I hope Akira is well versed in cat language, because otherwise he's just sitting there talking to a cat while it lounges on the ground.

Nekogami waits patiently the entire time Akira speaks, ears up and at attention but staring at a point somewhere around Akira's left knee. The lack of direct eye contact doesn't read as ignoring him, though, just the lack of aggression, although the agitation becomes clearer the longer Akira talks. Because he's right in some points, wrong in others, and then there are points Akira focuses on over others and that just makes Nekogami swish his tail in agitation too.

He's calm and quiet when Akira says that Kido wanted a knight, tail sweeping the floor slowly in uncertain backs and forths when he states that Nekogami is Kido's knight. Everything about building walls to protect herself, that applies to most people, so that it's understandable— but the reasons Akira gives for tearing the walls down aren't ones that Nekogami can agree with, lifting his eyes to meet Akira's and standing at the same time, a wall of ice shooting up from the ground but it's behind the Persona, blocking off the Shadow but leaving just him and Akira staring each other down.

He knows all this. But keeping Kido behind layers and layers of walls where she'll be alone, it's better than the alternative. Nekogami's job isn't to make Kido happy, after all. He's a Persona. He's here to keep her safe, and alive. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[Akira's still on the floor, looking at the cat, and his legs are getting a bit cold. Enough time around Morgana has taught him a few things about feline body language, but also, Morgana could verbally communicate with him. Akira brings his expression back to something more restrained when Nekogami puts up the ice wall, because of course it wasn't going to be that easy. It was a mistake to assume that Nekogami would take the stance of someone who cared about Kido's happiness, instead of— say— a stern guardian who enforces his idea of safety upon her, but with the troubling implication of subconscious approval by Kido. Having authority over yourself willingly taken by your own Persona...]

You're thinking of Terry, aren't you?

That didn't appeal to you because he's the one who got you into this mess in the first place.

[reveilation]

[ He's sure like that, with him being the Emperor and Kido as some princess to lock away for her own safety, but that's also been long standing, with Kido not knowing how to fight and so she lets her Persona have his own agency. And now we're here.

Nekogami makes no secret of his anger at Terry, hissing and baring his teeth at the mention of Terry's name, but he quiets down right after, tail lashing in agitation but he doesn't attack. Terry's been a problem even before he's gotten Kido killed so many times, but that isn't Akira's fault. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[It's one thing to let your Persona have their own agency. It's entirely another to strip yourself of your own and hand it over to your subconscious mind.]

You're right. He neglected her and hurt her and let her come to harm, when the role she put upon him was her knight. Now she's put you in the same role, and you won't fail like he did.

...She does the same thing with me. I'm nowhere near your level, obviously, but someone told me once that Kido talks about me a lot, like I have the answer to every problem somewhere in my coat pockets. How do you feel about that, Nekogami?

[It's a genuine question. If Kido is going through this revolving door of knights with such high expectations, and then turns on them when they fall short — but she can't say that herself because she's too passive, so she has Nekogami do it instead...]

[reveilation]

[ It's a slow blink that Nekogami gives Akira, because out of everybody Kido's met, Akira is one of the ones he trusts the most. Maybe it's unfair, because Terry has a lot more chances to screw up because he's with Kido so often, and maybe if Akira were in Terry's shoes, Kido would have died all those times anyways. But that's how it is. Akira hasn't disappointed her or Nekogami— not yet.

But in general, he doesn't like it, tail swishing behind him as he stands tall in front of Akira. He doesn't agree with the idea. ]

[infiltrationtools]

...It's true. I don't have the answer to everything.

[He sighs a little bit, because he desperately wishes he did.]

I like being seen as dependable, and I want to help Kido as much as I can. As her friend, I don't ever want to let her down. But I'm only a person and I only know so much.

[His legs are getting even more cold, so he shifts his weight a little bit, but then refocuses on Nekogami.]

So... I think Kido is wrong to assume that I can be her perfect knight. She was proven wrong when she assumed Terry could be her perfect knight. And all the other people she does this to, after Terry and after me, they probably can't be her knight either. [He's careful to use "they", implying that Nekogami is not one of those other people.]

...I think Kido can be her own knight, though. I see her strength in you, and your strength in her. And I think, if nothing else, I can help her learn to protect herself.

[reveilation]

[ Nekogami settles down again, lazily down on his side although he still bristles a little at Terry's name. Because yeah, that's all true. Kido is strong enough, and the part of Kido who is strong enough isn't the person she is right now— somebody who looks to people and is too scared to come out of their shadows— but the Kido who is strong, who can stand on her own.

That Kido is the Shadow sitting behind the wall of ice that starts to crumble, but before it completely falls, Nekogami looks up at Akira, opens his mouth, and rebuilds that same wall in between the two of them. Akira gets it, right? Both Nekogami and the Shadow, they are strong, while Kido is weak. They're the parts of her who are strong, and they're the only parts that she needs. This is why the Shadow will take over. This is why they're doing this.

It's for Kido's sake.

And so the wall goes up in front of Akira, locking him out but letting him leave. When he exits, he'll find all his weapons returned, sitting on the steps in front of the door, except the omamori isn't there. Every thing else is replaceable, but the omamori is something Akira has to come back for. Nekogami keeps it, hoping he will. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[He's not dead. So that's a start.]

[The next issue, then, will be figuring out how to explain that Kido's inner strength was there all along, because Nekogami was there all along, without making it sound like Nekogami is unneeded to avoid upsetting his ego. And, you know, the matter of proving Kido's worth as well as the Shadow's, and pitching the integration of the two halves to form the Strongest Possible Kido.]

[Still, Akira feels like he has a much better idea of what's going on now, and he willingly leaves with the intention of going home and making a game plan. And also coming back for that omamori, because even though he can still hear Arsène and the other two in the back of his head, being unable to summon them is... not gucci.]