April 22nd: 9:24 AM: Weather Sunny
"So it will be just us four going in right?" Yamato questions giving his gear one last readiness check, unsheathing his blade once to check on its condition for the briefest of moments. The night before, Labrys had given them each chest armor to place under their school uniforms.
"Unfortunately." Leiko responds worriedly, tapping her shoe in the dirt outside the door to the Velvet Room. "The teachers have conferences all day. Fuuka requested we call her during lunch break with an update." She hoped some of the tips, lessons and that item she had been given by Fuuka would help in keeping everyone safe.
Izumi checks the glowing red ofuda on her large wrench, making sure it is properly attached, "Any one feeling nervous doing this?" The girl looks to her friends with an apprehensive expression.
Yamato runs his hand through his hair, slouching his shoulders, "I'm nut going to lie to ewe, but I'm a bit on edge going into the unknown." He chuckles softly at his poor puns, Izumi and Leiko both laughing, while Labrys snickers.
"We really needed all that as a morale booster." Izumi sighs feeling her spirits lighten. She turns to face the open doorway, biting her lower lip slightly.
Yamato walks beside her, patting her shoulder, "You want to lead today, so lead. We've got your back."
"Right! Let's see what this place is all about." Izumi cries out in her boldest tone possible. She marches through the gateway, followed by Labrys, Leiko and Yamato.
The room beyond the gateway is a rectangular hall of sixty feet wide by forty feet long and has a high vaulted ceiling of green stone, over fifty feet high, with decayed tapestries hanging at the highest points. At the far side of this chamber are three giant doors of different colors and styles, each with a marble facade surrounding them, depicting women spinning, weaving and cutting threads. Under these women is something written in another language. Two of these doors are located at the corners of this building. The third is directly across from the main entrance.
The door in the left corner is made of a purple dyed cedar with silver inlays of an upside down heart at its center and threads being woven around the frame of said door. There is a round slot above the handle, which is shaped like a flower.
The center gate is a set of large gray double doors of metal and thick red and brown plant fibers with thorns interwoven. A square slot is found at the center, where metal and fiber blur together with a symbol of a sun next to it. The last door is of an orange colored stone which is painted with logographs depicting a moonlight funeral. This door too has a slot at its apex, one that looks triangular.
The walls are lined with white crumbling sandstone pillars while within the outcropping of the walls are clear tubes with gray threads within, which are softly clicking as if they are trying to be moved someplace. At the very heart of this place is a raised platform with three more translucent tubes exiting the back of it, the clear cylinders inlaid in the floor running towards the three doors before driving under it. Braziers dotting the wall roar to life in flames of azure, red and orange, casting an eerie light across the room.
"What did we just walk into?" Yamato gulps, feeling rather intimidated by this place. Even the breaths he releases forms into a visible condensation as he meanders to the purple door.
Izumi rubs her shoulder, feeling a chill running through her body, "I don't know, but did the temperature just drop to?"
Labrys wanders past the raised platform to the central door, her sensors not picking up anything unusual. "This place is even giving me some bad vibes, so it ain't really the temperature. It's more something a Persona user is sensitive to." She looks up at the facade, scanning the letters to locate them in her database.
"Now I wish I hadn't worn my skirt." Leiko shivers, the lighting and empty space making her uneasy. She steps up to the raised platform to inspect it, not finding anything of note about it.
"I'm right there with ya on that." Izumi remarks as she sidles up next to the silver haired robo warrior, "Labby, any idea what the markings are?"
"It's Gaelic with some Demotic mixed in I think. It's an odd combination and I'm having issues with the translation." The silver haired girl answers in befuddled amazement. "Leiko, could you search beyond this door?"
Badb appears as Leiko closes her eyes to focus. She reaches out past the two women and through the door, only to encounter a sharp static that interferes with most of the vision of the area, "I'm barely able to see anything, a colonnade and what I can only think is a Shadow lurking about, five or so meters from the door."
"I was afraid of that, I'm not detecting any kind of Shadows with my radar." Labrys' lip curls into a frown, "Something doesn't want us poking around."
"Odd, what's with this…" Yamato questions aloud, bending down to inspect the round slot of the cedar door. He slowly moves his fingers around the inlay, discovering an indentation with little grooves for something to click into. A sudden realization strikes the young cook as he stands up quickly to look at his companions, "Leiko! Do you have that token with you!? I might have found our path forward."
"I got it in my bag. Hold on!" Leiko opens her bag as she heads over, digging past some medication, a pink earphone with mic and her wallet until her fingers grasp the object. "Here we go." She slowly presses the token into the slot, hearing it snap into place, but nothing seems to be happening.
"Maybe rotate it like you did when you took it out of the first door?" Yamato suggests as he checks to see if the token is fully in place.
Leiko shakes her head disappointedly, "I don't think that will work, it's not vibrating…" She stops speaking as the upside down heart begins beating, a glow creeping from the connected point, looping around to rejoin itself and then proceeding to continue into another loop as it forms a number six on each side.
"What's this supposed to mean? A heart becoming two sixes?" Izumi asks, flabbergasted by this strange turn of events.
Leiko furrows her brow, trying to puzzle out the meaning behind what is happening. "I've no idea."
"Maybe it's just wanting chocolates since it missed out on White Day or something." Yamato cracks, just as confused as everyone else.
"Maybe it's referencing something inherent to people or Shadows." Labrys ponders as she tries to compute an answer.
"Inherent to people or Shadows?" Leiko questions softly, something in the back of her mind burning, "What about something inherent to Personas and Shadows!"
"Something they both have? I do know Shadows sometimes have numbers on their masks, is that connected in any way to Personas?" Yamato paces in thought, not wanting to feel like the weak link in intelligence.
"The Arcana! All Personas and Shadows have an Arcana associated with them!" Labrys exclaims, her eyes lighting up at the realization as she brings her left first down into her open right palm. She learned all this from Mitsuru and the other Shadow Operatives.
"You mean like the tarot card arcanas? Wait, tarot cards have numbers on them right?" Yamato pulls out his phone, typing furiously on his search bar.
"I found it! They do have numbers!" Izumi pipes up holding out her phone, showing off the cards of the fool, lovers and the hanged man, each with a number on them. "The answer we're looking for is the Lovers! Sorry for stealing your thunder Yama."
"It's no big deal." The young man takes a closer look at Izumi's screen, glad that she is ahead of him on the matter, "So we're aiming for something related to the Lovers Arcana. How can we even tell if a Shadow with no mask or a wild Persona is what we need?"
"If I focus enough on a Shadow when I'm scanning, I can sort of read what Arcana they have." Leiko's face suddenly turns red with embarrassment, as she quickly covers her face with her left hand, speaking in a muffled voice, "And we don't need to find a Lovers related Persona, Pixie is one. We had the answer on us the entire time."
"But how do ya even use that Persona and the key together?" Concern and confusion showing in Labrys' eyes.
"Th…" Leiko is interrupted by her phone ringing, the ID reading Mina Safie. She fingers the speaker function, accepting the call, "Mina is something wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong, but you all did a fine job of solving the mystery of the token as a team. What I am calling about is that my sisters and brother can help you with fusing the key together with Pixie. Make haste to the Velvet room." The phone cuts out abruptly. At the same time, the object pops from the door and clangs on the ground.
"I have so many questions about that call Leiko, but I think those can wait for another day." With everything that had happened in the past ten minutes, questions like these could just take a backseat to Yamato.
"I'll be back in a minute." Leiko snags the token and rushes out of the hall.
"So, how exactly are we fusing Pixie and this token together?" The pink haired woman questions, joining Mina and her siblings at a hastily set up double circle with elaborate designs of the twenty two major Arcana in front of Igor's desk. The inner area of the circle is transcribed with a loom, thread and scissors.
"First, I'll have to place the token in the center of this relic circle." Mina instructs as Leiko presents her with the item. Taking light steps the attendant cautiously stations the token at the center of focus point, "Second, you must summon Pixie into a base Arcana Card form, which isn't hard to do. Focus your mind a bit."
Leiko nods, holding out her hand visualizing Pixie's power as a card. A bloom of blue energy swirls in her hand as the card materializes, spinning at forty five degree angle.
"You are learning quickly. Theodore, Levenza and I will be using Pixie as a one time charge to infuse the token with the Lovers power." Magarent plucks the card out of the air, placing it a foot above the token.
"So is this something akin to fusion that Igor spoke to me about?" Questions the pink haired girl out of interest as she takes several steps back.
The short teen attendant taps her gloved index finger against her chin in thought, "In a manner of speaking of creating something new, yes. Now let us begin, dear brother and sister."
The three attendants spread out as they each take a third of the circle and they begin chanting. Threads of energy pour out from a rift between the token and the card as it quickly connects them, channeling a soft pink light between the two. The card rapidly dissolves away as a warm light radiates softly from the token.
"No…ow you can advance on your journey." Margaret pants, stumbling backward on her heels, but Leiko catches her, leaning the woman onto her shoulder. "Thank you Leiko." Behind them, Theodore and Lavenza are stumbling as well, but Mina manages to hoist them back onto her shoulders.
"Are you alright?" Leiko asks in concern as she grabs the nearby chair. "Sit down for a moment and rest."
The eldest attendant smiles kindly at the wild card holder, falling back into the chair, "I'm sorry, we went a bit overboard in our first attempt. If we do another fusion charge, we'll just have to adjustice what we're doing." She looks to her younger siblings, watching Mina place Theodore and Lavenza into some freshly summoned chairs.
"It's not a matter of if Margaret, more of when. I caught a glimpse of those other doors in that foyer, it sure looks like there are other tokens out there. And we can't rule out the chance this key will need another charge to it." The young woman looks over her shoulder, watching Mina chiding her two siblings, handing them sodas to drink. "Mina, do you need a hand over there?"
Safie shakes her head as a few tears tickle from her eyes, her voice breaking upon speaking, "N..no, I think I can manage in taking care of my sisters and brother." She takes a breath as she wipes away her tears, "I appreciate the concern for us, we just need to prepare better for next time. While I attend to familial matters, please use the charged token to continue your journey."
"When I'm able I'll check back up on you all." Leiko quickly swipes the token from the floor, the object vibrating in her hand. I feel terrible that this happened to them, but I'll make it up to them somehow. The girl thinks, leaving the Velvet room.
Leiko steps back into the foyer, joining her companions by the door, "We've got our way forward, even if it's just a single use charge."
"So are you going to explain this Velvet Room thing that Mina person mentioned?" Izumi curiously asks since all of them wanted to know more.
"It's sort of…a weird thing to explain and I doubt you'd…" The pink haired girl starts.
Yamato chortle cuts her off, "It carrot be weirder than Personas, Shadows or other things we've seen in the past month."
"Yama is right, you can tell us and we won't laugh at it no matter how odd it may sound." Izumi adds encouragingly. "Come on, you can trust us."
Feeling the trusting bond of her friends, the girl speaks immediately, "The Velvet room is this realm between reality and dream that I get to via a blue door. I'm apparently the only person who can see it. Inside this very blue room is a hooked nose man, who summons Personas or fuses them into something new is my understanding." Leiko kneels down before the door, speaking further, "Mina is an attendant to this man and she governs power, holding a book that has the information on the Personas I've personally had and she wears an all blue outfit. Her brother and sisters are the ones who fused the Arcana from Pixie into the Token. That's all there is to it really."
"That's not crazy at all, Leiko." Labrys nods through all of this, giving her a smile of understanding, "Elizabeth took me into the sea of souls once when I was getting repairs to chat with me. So she's probably related to these guys." The android wonders if that bit of information was classified. She never did tell Mitsuru about it so it probably wasn't.
"That doesn't sound very far-fetched at all. We were in a Dread Burrow, so something like that sounds possible." Izumi smiles, thinking of all the town lore she remembered that seems to mention something akin to Shadows.
"Extractly what Izumi said to ya." Yamato nods in agreement, "So how about we stop wasting Thyme and open that door." With this hall place, nothing sounded too crazy to him anymore, not even a room with a hooked nose man.
"After I open the door, I'm going to see if I can sense anything beyond it." Without hesitation, Leiko inserts the token into the slot.
The token's faint glow intensifies and with muffled thuds, the object spins within the cedar door. Loud bangs echo across the chamber as if large locks are breaking apart on the other side. The embedded token slowly stops its rotation and topples from the slot with a dull thud into the dirt as the door itself lowers into the floor, the metal and wood grinding against the stone. Air suddenly rushes past the four people, as if equalizing the pressure beyond the threshold.
Reaching out beyond the door, Lekio's mind's eye zooms down a stairwell lit with torches, through an open gateway. "I'm pinging a fair number of shadows that are spread out. I'm not able to tell exactly how many. We'll be entering a chamber at the bottom of some stairs, there's a lot more of the weird tubes with the threads lining the walls and one in the floor like up here.." Leiko opens her eyes, feeling close to her limit as a bead of sweat drops from her nose.
"So, has Fuuka's lesson paid off yet?" Izumi concernedly asks, holding out a Mad Bull. "You look like you pushed yourself a bit there."
Leiko nods, drinking part of the soda. "I did a bit. Thanks to Fuuka, I'm able to focus and search more accurately at short range now, not too sure about long range. I still have a lot of work to do to get better with my overall range and stamina." Finishing the soda, the girl stows the can away. She wasn't about to litter in here.
Without any other words the group descends.
The room beyond the stairwell is crafted of azure stone walls and floors, some spots above and below the translucent tubes inlaid within are covered by rotted cedar board. Wooden remains of crates litter the floor near arched openings and nearby are three closed doors. In the ceiling above, panels of light, magical or natural in origin shine dimly down. Directly in front of the door where one descended from the stairs is an unlit hearth with a large cauldron hanging above it.
The party of four moves to the center of the room, taking notice of all two curved stone tunnels near the arched opening located a few meters away on their left and right. A third tunnel lies at the far end of the room, the embedded clear tube following it into the dark, where only red eyes shine.
Izumi's eyes fall to the nearest door on her right and she walks over to inspect it, placing a hand on the door. There is no sign of a handle nor a slot for anything, but an engraving on the placard lights up in purples and golds with two symbols. One is of a kunai with a headset, the other is of a cooking pan and practice kendo sword.
"Any idea what…" She begins, but her train of thought is cut short as four pink and black striped floating shadows that are nothing but a large mouth and tongue float from a side passage making a loud smacking sound. "Ah crap, we got company!" Yelps the girl as she retreats back to her friends as they form a triangle with Leiko at the center.
Yamato unsheathes his blade as Iwaka appears twirling a few knives, "Looks like they aren't the only ones to be joining us today." He points to a group of ten floating shadows wearing circlets around their heads with a book fixed on top of it emerging from the central passage, followed by at least seven small goopy shadows with masks and several hand enemies.
"I'll do whatever it takes to protect my friends, you hear me you shadows!" Labrys' wings disengage from her back as she transforms it into her battle ax. Ariadne, who is a tall pure white persona with bluish flowing long hair and has armor with splits like Labrys, appears behind the girl with a ball of string pulsing in her palm.
Three of the slimy shadows launch themselves at Izumi, striking her in the shins. She stumbles back a few steps, taking a moment to regain her balance, before striking back. Her tagged wrench smashes the puddle Shadow to dust, while Hathor uses her staff to bash a circlet-wearing enemy to the floor.
"Dice em Iwaka!" Yamato lunges at one of the mouth enemies, his blade sinking deep into its side, while his Persona follows up with a slice to its back, causing it to break apart. The other two mouth enemies blast bursts of Garu at Yamato and the Persona, knocking them back.
"There are more Shadows on the way!" Leiko calls out as Badb blasts a Psi attack at one of the mouths, missing completely, but at least hitting one of the hands.
Labrys' aims her left arm at the nearest enemy in the room, her fist rocketing into one of circlet wielders, knocking it back. She quickly reels her arm back in, swinging her axe at one of the large mouth Shadows, hacking in two.
Four dice like Shadows and a beast with the appearance of a brown scaled turtle with a red dragon slithering out of its blue shell lumbers from the passage behind them. The beast roars as it showers shards of ice down upon the group.
Ariadne and Hathor avoid the ice, diving into a counter attack of newly added enemies, while the others are pelted. Three of the dice move in to protect the turtle beast, melting away as they take the string and staff blows.
"We need an escape plan." Yamato shouts a bit fearfully, Iwaka casting an Agi attack to heat things up against another of the circlet wielding shadows as the cook is smacked around by one of the hands across the face. The blue-haired boy grunts as he counterattacks, missing the hand by mere inches as it skitters off.
Leiko quickly views the room, trying to find someplace safe to go, "That passage over there! There aren't any shadows that way!" She points to the passage that was on the right form where they arrived in the room. Only three shadows are blocking the way over.
Lighting falls down around them, making the three teens and robot girl scream in pain. The circlet shadows twirl around tauntingly, having just used a group Zio.
"I've got one of those three enemies! Follow my lead everyone!" Labrys' axe retracts in its wing-like shape, as she returns it to her back. The thrusters in her wings light up and she air dashes at the last largemouth shadow, punching it with all the force she can.
"Take this ya puddle." Yamato stabs the slush shadow through its mask, the creature dissolving within seconds, "You know Izumi, this reminds of that dodgeball game we had with everyone during middle school. Leiko, make a break for it, we'll be right behind you!"
"Badb, Pained Scream!" Leiko shouts in confirmation, starting to run for the hallway, barely side stepping a Hand trying to smack her in the head with its finger. The Persona releases a ghastly wail upon the Shadows, causing many to wobble. This slight disorientation is just enough of an opening for Leiko to reach the passage, though she didn't notice the three misty orbs in her path.
"I think your brain is foggy if you can compare that to this. I thought we said we'd never speak of it again." Izumi counters, smacking a gloved hand into a wall with a well timed wrench backhand, running for the passage with Yamato once her path is clear. "Two points!"
"Yeah yeah, you win this time on creative smackdowns." Yamato teases, winking at her playfully.
"Now's a good time to get some distance between us and them. They're fighting one another." Labrys observes, joining her friends past the archeway, as two hands and the remaining die Shadows start beating on their brethren
Not looking back, the group takes off at a brisk run along the tunnel. The dimly lit corridor stretches on, with no signs of a door or even a shaft of some kind to denote another passage. There are also no sounds echoing from behind them that reach their ears.
"That was not normal." Yamato finally voices, pulling out some iodine to treat a few of the easier injuries to treat while they run, "I've never seen Shadows swarm like that or do group spells. Even in Dread Burrows they are in smaller groups of like four."
"I think…" Labrys hesitates to answer, hoping deep down in her plume of darkness she is wrong, "I think someone baited all those Shadows to that room, trying to send a message to leave and not come back. Even smaller swarms of Shadows do not gather like that unless it's for very specific reasons."
Leiko closes her eyes for a brief moment, remembering back to the beach when she was just fourteen, "I've seen them swarm like that over five years ago, when my Persona awoke. I just thought it was something related to that wild Persona or the Dread Burrow itself at the time. Maybe we just got unlucky today."
"I don't know about being unlucky." Izumi utters doubtfully, as Hathor floats behind the group healing each of them in turn, "Maybe Labby is onto something with someone baiting them or maybe it could be a test of some kind even?" She looks over shoulder at the android, "What reason would cause Shadows to amass in numbers like that?"
"I can think of something, but you'd need hundreds of thousands of Shadows to accomplish that goal. What we saw today is a small blip in comparison." The android answers, thinking about what happened during the P-1 Climax. If the Shadows had been baited, then the situation was more dire then Aigis or Mitsuru had thought.
The group falls into silence for several minutes until the blue-haired boy clears his throat.
"So if we're going off Izumi's idea of it being a test." Yamato slows his pace to turn around, walking backwards, "Did we…" He stops mid sentence, pointing to a tall masked cat girl-like-being floating next to Leiko. "When did you get that! I didn't see any mist as we escaped."
"I didn't either." Leiko turns her head in surprise to look at the Persona, the catgirl giving her a cheeky wave before disappearing. Deep in her heart, Leiko feels the presence of the three new Personas. The first being the catgirl, Nekomata which had Agi, the second being an Angel that can use Garu and the third called Inugami that could poison things.
After her moment of reflection, the girl speaks again, "The only explanation is that I ran through some mist because I acquired three Persona." She slowly comes to a stop, staring at a ray of shining light ahead of the group. She couldn't help but smile seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
"Earth to Leeko." Yamato waves his head in front of the pink haired girl, confused by what is going on.
Pressing her hand against his shoulder, Izumi hints for Yamato to turn, "You really shouldn't be walking backward Yama."
Turning around, his own eyes focused on the light, "Oh, that's what caused her to stop. Come on, we should just stop stalling and get outside."
"Agreed." Izumi nods with a smile, which suddenly disappears upon realizing something. Her shoulders droop and with a heavy sigh she looks at the azure stone beneath her feet. "When we get outside, I need to tell you all something. It's related to the conversation we had earlier. About all the Shadows." She walks ahead towards the light, finding a stairwell, which she and her friends ascend.