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DECEMBER EVENT PT 1
DECEMBER EVENT PT 1
premise ⬥ taken ⬥ faq ⬥ navigation
→ 12/3 Lockdown
- The wind picks up at midnight, flowing through the streets but softened by the snowflakes that drift down from the sky. Over the full hour of Lockdown, the snowfall dampens the wind and makes it harder to follow the stream than before, blowing out from the forest and towards the center of town where a snowdrift builds up against the shut doors of the hospital's main entrance. Defeat the Daitengu, and the next dungeon appears the month after... During Lockdown, black blobs of Shadows continue to seep out of the hospital, shrine, lake, and school, but with the third Daitengu defeated, the wind doesn't howl as strongly and the snowfall is light, leaving the town dusted with snow the next morning that easily melts by mid-day. The town is cold, quiet, and still, almost as if holding its breath, but perhaps it's an illusion created by the townspeople staying indoors to keep out of the cold, and that everybody who had arrived from the alternate Hirajiro has been spirited away overnight, gone without fanfare by the time the wind dies down at the end of Lockdown. The only thing left behind is a complete deck of tarot cards with no duplicates, neatly stacked and set by the entrance of the honden, with a heavy stone on top to keep the cards from blowing away in the wind.
With the wind picking up around the shrine, a slow, deep ringing can be heard from a large bell that has been tied up above the offertory box with a thick rope, swinging with the wind; the offertory box itself is emptied of gemstones at the beginning of the month, but will slowly fill back up if the Persona users continue to donate the stones dropped by defeated Shadows, with the understanding that any boon they receive comes with strengthening the Kotengu as well. As if called by the toll of the bell, it seems like all of the crows in town have congregated around the shrine for the winter, perched on the rooftops, lit stone lanterns, and even the torii, all peering down at whoever enters the shrine and keeping an eye on them all the while they stand on sacred land. Although the crows seem unbothered by the ringing bell, the resident fox skitters away whenever it hears the noise, although it will always return when the wind dies down, or if the bell is otherwise bound and still. The sign that's supposed to contain the shrine deity's name still lacks the name, but this time, the sign is painted over with solid black, the paint layered on so thickly, you can see where the trails of paint are pulled to the bottom of the sign, under which dry spots of black paint can be seen before covered by the dusting of snow.
Near the path leading from the shrine to the castle, a large area of trees has been demolished in a vaguely serpentine shape, the trees lying splintered and fallen but far enough to pose no danger to the castle. Unlike the shrine, there are little to no crows that hang around the structure, the same two stories with the broken stairs up to the incomplete third floor becoming hazardous to climb with the falling snow and the wind that blows through the open windows of the second floor, making the castle howl. The throne sports a new cushion and a thick woollen blanket draped over the back of it, but with the ofuda door containing just the same two as before, the castle remains stuck in time, and the night goes on.
→ 12/3 - 1/2 Town events
- It snows on and off over the next few days, getting steadily colder as the month progresses. While the snow is powdery and easy to clear, there's a lot of it that piles right back up by the end of the day, creating a constant demand for help shoveling the roads around the neighborhoods and marketplace to keep them clear, although the Persona users will have to keep the path to the castle and shrine clear on their own, as none of the townspeople are concerned about the forest in general. In town, all the extra snow initially gets pushed towards the center to dump into the lake, but after the lake freezes over after the first week of the month, the excess snow gets piled into a large hill and packed down to be perfect for sledding, with makeshift sleds ranging from laundry baskets to trash can lids left lying around for people to grab and slide— and pray they don't veer off course and crash straight through the ice covering the lake. A Persona may be able to thicken the ice and make it safer to skate on, but in the meanwhile, people will just have to watch out for the spots where the ice is thin and easily broken. Please don't fall in, unless it's near midnight and you fall straight into a random floor of the lake dungeon.
Strings of plain white Christmas lights adorn the trees in town and around the outskirts where it borders the forest, leaving the entire town lit with a soft glow after sundown. Throughout town, the decorations are similarly subtle, with fancier decorations seen in storefronts rather than people's homes, and instead of a single Christmas tree towering over the town, a set of four smaller trees line the back of a large stage set on the lakefront across the school building, which has made its appearance for summer festivals in the past. Surrounding the stage are many stalls that make up a holiday craft market that will be open all month. For a small fee, anybody can purchase a spot at the craft market to sell their own crafts, most of which are intended to be decorations for people's homes or to be given as gifts for Christmas and the New Year. Among the crafts are traditional gifts like knit scarves and sweaters, as well as clay figurines, beaded crafts, painted plates, and any manner of handmade items people have to offer. Although the main focus of the market is for crafts, there are also stalls selling refreshments such as hot chocolate and baked goods.
On the stage itself, each of the four trees is topped with a bird-like angel painted in soft reds, blacks, and golds, and rather than lights and ornaments, the trees have emas hung on the branches, with wishes written on the small wooden plaques. While emas are traditionally hung at a shrine for the kami to receive them, the emas here are for the community to offer and receive: for every wish you hang up, you're encouraged to take at least one other ema and fulfill that wish in return. Some of the wishes are very general, such as asking people to do good deeds to make the world a better place, wishing for the exams at school to be a little easier next year, or hoping everybody in the hospital will get better. Other wishes are more personal, such as wanting to learn a new skill, receive a certain toy, or help cleaning out a basement, and these personal wishes contain the person's name and contact information to indicate who to report to grant the wish. Not all wishes can be granted directly, but the effort put towards them still counts. There is no payment or other incentives to fulfill multiple wishes other than good karma, which will surely be returned to you in the new year.
→ MOD NOTES
- ⬥ Each character may make one free ema wish in the top-level below and the mods will reply with how the wish is fulfilled. Note that personal wishes will be signed for everybody to see, and while ICly all wishes will be fulfilled by the townspeople and not the Kotengu, for this first wish, a crow will occasionally swoop down and take an ema, so you guys can get your stat boosts and skill upgrades.
⬥ Additional ema wishes may be made for every thread reported that involves fulfilling one of the townspeople's wishes and must have a minimum of 5 comments from you. There is no limit to how many ema wishes that can be made, but all threads are due by 1/3/2020 when January's dungeon log goes up. These extra wishes will be fulfilled by the townspeople, so they might not know what to do with wishes like "+1 to all stats." You are still welcome to try, though, and they will do their best.
⬥ Part 2 of December's event will go up on 12/15 to encompass Christmas, New Years, and tragedy.
⬥ This month, the full moon occurs on 12/11 - 12/13. While Personas are stronger around the time of the full moon, they are more difficult to control and may behave strangely and disobey orders around these dates. This is an optional mechanic.
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She makes another "come here" gesture towards Ami, but keeps her eyes on Orien. ]
How come you can talk? Or did a witch curse you into looking like that?
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[ Like you, Kido. ]
But this cat here, her name is Ami. She likes me no matter what I look like, so she feels like family to me.
[ Ami nuzzles against Orien's face as if to prove his point. ]
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And the witch put a curse on the cat too? Can she talk?
[ That's not a real cat. Real cats wouldn't be like this. Little Kido is very unimaginative and very unforgiving about these sorts of things. ]
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[ Ami meows and looks at Kido cutely... ]
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Too bad. If the witch could turn you into a cat, I would help you find her.
[ But if it's just human or snake, it looks like Orien is on his own. ]
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Are you hungry? I can get you some food.
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I'm not hun—
[ Her stomach chooses just then to growl, and Kido glares at Orien like it's his fault. It sort of is. He brought up food. ]
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[ The glare might as well just bounce off him as he goes back to ever judging look of his. ]
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[ Shrimp chips for breakfast... Orien can't say he's not good with children. He'll be better than Terry ever is. ]
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[ lol maybe he's just better at handling Kido...
Orien makes his way over to the kitchen cabinet and gets out a bag of shrimp chip snacks. He coils around it with his tail end and extends it over to Kido. ]
Truce?
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...Okay, truce.
[ The way into little girls' hearts: cats and junk food. Kido scoots a little closer to Orien and takes the chips, opening the bag and eating them. ]
What are you going to have for breakfast?
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Maybe some lettuce... I'm not feeling hungry right now.
[ Jace was never the cook in the house. ]
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[ She crunches another chip, but doesn't look too displeased or critical or anything. Ami is a fake cat and Orien is a fake snake; she's pretty convinced about that now. ]
Snakes don't eat lettuce. They eat mice and birds and eggs. I read that in a book.
[ Orien would have to swallow an entire head of lettuce if he tried to eat it, and he's tiny. ]
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[ ... ]
Usually, snakes aren't allergic to mice either.
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[ Still eating her chips, Kido turns to walk out the door to find the kitchen. There's probably eggs in the fridge and she can grab three or four eggs to shove down Orien's throat so he won't die.
It'll be her thanks for the chips. You're welcome, Orien. ]
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... I'm definitely full now. Just keep eating your chips.
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She crunches another chip while she looks around the kitchen. What a small house. She walks over to the living room and pulls aside a curtain to look outside, before letting it drop and wandering away from it too. ]
...Are your parents home?
[ She says to a snake that sounds like a 40 year old guy i guess ]
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[ The irony isn't lost on him, but he doesn't show that it's significant. ]
So you can come back to stay here however long you want. You can consider this your home too.
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[ She bites at her bottom lip, because not having parents is always a sad thing, no matter what. This is before she was taken to the orphanage, so it's the fact that she'd lost her family and her home in one fell swoop before opening her eyes in that room surrounded by cats.
...Now that she thinks about it, ]
Are we both dead?
[ Is this heaven? It's so sad that he has to be stuck as a snake even in Paradise. ]
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[ That's all he's gonna say about it, because he thinks that's a surprising conclusion to make. He wants to see how far Kido's imagination will take her. ]
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[ Kido nods slowly, because she thinks she knows who the witch that cursed him is, but she's a nice witch and there's no way for them to talk anymore anyways. ]
Um... well... I don't know how to help, but you'll figure it out. And then things will go back to normal.
[ Ganba mastering your eye ability, Orien. ]
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[ He doesn't count on it, and his original body has been long since dead anyway. It's probably compressed into the earth's dying crust or something. It's funny you say that because the reason why Orien's eyes are so blue was because when Terrence was younger, he gave his blue eyes to the Orien back then so that he could see. Nothing magical though. ]
It'll be fine in the end. You'll be okay too.
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Hm... I don't think so. It's already the end. And I don't know what's supposed to happen after.
[ She just died half an hour ago? That's what it felt like to her. Half an hour ago, she was having tea with Azami, who tells her she has to continue living instead of resting in peace and it sucks. ]
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[ It may not be the future they want, but it's still a future. ]
... Even if I have to live the rest of my life as a snake.
[ He wants a drink, but he'll be responsible and not drink in front of kids. ]
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[ She just said she believed in his ability to get the eye thing under control ): ]
You have a house, and a lot of cats, and that's basically all you need in life... But I don't have anything like that. And it'd be weird staying here.
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