27th Dungeon (Read 545 times)

[Kalina]

Location: Within the white landscape of Mount Hakobe is a black tower. It sits near the base of the mountain, near Fiore Western side. The entrance is at its front, as is to be expected. It is a white magic circle that teleports guests to the Dungeon's center when stepped on.
Djinn: Grigori
Djinn Nature: Grigori lives in a world with only two colors: White and Black. He is a bipolar character that will be sinister when he is white and kind and friendly when he is black. That change in nature expands to his dungeon and his powers. His abilities involve painting the region and targets in black and white.
Dungeon Layout: Dungeons have been appearing for years now, and they disappear when they are completed. Most of the people that have entered these Dungeons have failed to reach the end. A large amount of those people have not even returned. Grigori's Dungeon consists of a puzzle composed of white and black tiles. The tiles alternate without warning, and the colors alternate between being safe and being dangerous. Once upon a time a Celestial Spirit mage and her group gave this trial a try. She never made it, and now her spirit, Taurus, is stuck playing this sinister game.
Additional Rewards:
Celestial Spirit Mage: Golden Key: Taurus

[Daniel Adler]

“… Where am I?”

While trying to take a shelter from this horrid blizzard in a remotely abandoned tower, Daniel somehow managed to find himself being teleported into the depths of this mysterious place by some magical circle that appeared beneath his feet when he came near the entrance. The swordsman wasn’t exactly sure where he was, but as far as he knew, the door he supposedly came through was locked behind him, never to open up again. Well, it was much better than being frozen solid in middle of the blizzard; any longer and he might’ve died from the sheer cold. The interior was thankfully warmer due to all the torches being lit as he walked down the dark hallways constructed by ancient stone masonry. At first, the entire place looked normal, but further he went in, the dungeon took a very… strange turn in terms of construction. The stone pillars seemed to turn and bend off into odd directions like branches, or vines of some sort. To make matters even stranger, the hallway they’ve travelled on was linear, but it acted as a constant nauseating spiral going further up the tower.

Eventually, Daniel found himself in a large room with transparent glass-like black tiles for the floors. There were no ancient furniture of some sort, nor did he find any signs of anyone who lived once here. The swordsman could only guess that this place was abandoned, but why a tower in a snowy mountain? With an uneasy feeling gripping him, Daniel found himself carefully shifted across the tiles, being careful not to crack them under his weight. By the time he reached the other side, something manifested in front of him. Black and white flames grew out of the ground and from it formed a shape of a humanoid man dressed in a complete black.

“My name is Grigori, the djinn of this dungeon. What brings you here, traveler?”

“I am simply taking shelter in here for the time being until the blizzard passes, but it seems the entrance leading outside is locked, is there any other form of exit around?” Daniel asked.

The djinn rubbed his chin, “Ah, that’s quite troublesome indeed. Those who come here usually never see the light of the day again, but perhaps you can break the vicious cycle. If you want to get out of here, you must play the ‘game’. It’s a puzzle, but the rules are simple: Always step on black tiles and never step on the whites. I will do what I can to help you through, so go ahead and step through the door.” Grigori assured, even going as far as opening the door for Daniel and he stepped in through a similar room except the tiles were much bigger now, enough to fit at least three person per-square and it was wider as well. “Well, looks simple enough, doesn’t it? It seems like I have two more guests to attend to, go ahead through the next room.”

Upon saying those words, the spirit disappeared in flames.

“Seems easy enough, but… should I even trust this so-called ‘djinn’? Well, if playing this game is the only way out, I guess I have no other choice."

[Alexandra De'Sivier]

Alexandra gripped his cape and held it close to him, shielding his face with his other arm as he trudged forward through the ever-thickening snowbanks. There had been reports of people going missing in this area, enough that it was listed as a possible Dungeon location, and the young Knight had been sent to investigate, new enough to be expendable yet trusted enough to rely on. Unfortunately for him, however, a blizzard had fallen upon the area soon after his arrival, almost fully blinding him and turning the land around him into a formless mass of White. Before him, however, was possible salvation; a dark spire, darker than the gray and white world around the Knight, and it was there that Alexandra was currently headed.

The tower itself seemed empty as Alexandra stepped within, though there were signs that someone else had come through there sometime after the blizzard had started, save for a white glyph on the floor just inside the entrance. Alexandra tried stepping back, planning on going back to Crocus and reporting that this was indeed a Dungeon, however a strong gust of wind caught his cape and blew it inside, choking the knight some and causing him to stumble forward onto the Glyph. The scenery around him instantly changed; gone was the snow, the black stone and cold air, replaced by warmth and a large room covered in a checkerboard of white and black squares.

"Where in the.... so this is the inside of a Dungeon...." Alexandra muttered to himself as he knocked the snow out of his hair, a quick Requip causing the snow on his armor and cape to fall to the ground harmlessly, however his calm attitude changed quickly as a monochrome fire flared to life in the air, the Knight grabbing his sword and preparing to draw it. He stopped himself, however, after the fire changed into a man colored entirely white save for his eyes, which were a piercing red.

"Oh, so you're one of the two I sensed.... what're you doin' in my Dungeon, brat?"

"I got pushed in by the weather outside. I apologize if I'm trespassing, and I didn't intend to enter here." The question had caught Alexandra slightly off-guard, the Knight letting go of his weapon and relaxing some, however he stayed on-guard. If the man before him was the owner of the Dungeon, he was almost definitely a Djinn. The Knight didn't know that much about Djinns, only that they were supernatural beings that held great power, and as such he was wary of the man before him. "Is there a way that I can leave here quickly? I'd rather not inconvenience you more than I have already."

"...yeah. Yeah, there is. Reach the end of the Dungeon, and I'll let you off scot-free. See the black tiles? Those are safe to step on. Have fun, brat. I got more important things to take care of than watching you walk around."

The man disappeared in another burst of flame, leaving Alexandra alone in the room, and the Knight stepped to the end of the gray platform he had arrived on, standing before a black panel. Setting his foot down gently, it seemed like the Djinn had told the truth. Three steps across the panel, however, that changed; a crackling sound caught the Knight's attention, and before he could do anything, a surge of energy ran through his body. Searing pain filled his mind, his mouth open in a anguished scream as his body was wracked with pain, and after a few moments, he was thrown backwards to the stone platform.

"Hck... bastard lied to me...." Alexandra pushed himself to his feet slowly, leftover static discharge crackling across the, now charred and slightly cracked, metal armor pieces for a few moments before vanishing entirely. The man removed his armor and looked at his hands, checking for any real damage, and sighed in relief at finding none. His body was unhurt this time, his armor had taken the brunt of the damage, but that wouldn't be the same next time. The Knight went to the panels again, but this time chose a white one, dashing across the room quickly in case the rules were to suddenly change mid-trip. Entering a new room, this one with much larger panels, there was a surprise for he Knight; another person was in the Dungeon. If they were to work together, they could surely defeat it. "Hey, you there, did you get pulled in here as well?"

[Samaya Sinbad]

[

Ugh, why did I come up here? It so cold! This is the exact polar opposite of Sindria... Heheh, I made a joke there. "Polar." Samaya trudged through the snow, her ire building as she held her trench coat close to her. She thought about how she should have packed heavier clothes, but hadn't because she couldn't have imagined that it would be this cold up here. Alas, nothing could be done except to find some sort of shelter.

Why had she climbed the mountain? Some locals had told her that there were precious minerals to be found in this mountain, a cave of sorts was up here. Of course, once up here Samaya realized that either they had been lying, or the cave entrance was covered by ice and snow. I swear, when I get back down there, I'm getting someone to come up here and survey the damn cave.

Up ahead Samaya could see a tower, tall as all get out, and most likely very cold inside, though Samaya figured that it couldn't be any worse than being outside, so she headed toward it. As she neared, she spotted a person, but they seemed to disappear even as they approached the doorway. Samaya thought that was spooky, and when she got to the doorway she spotted the magic circle that marked the entryway. She tried thinking of as many commercial uses she could imagine for a teleportation circle, and was promptly reminded by a gust of icy wind that she was slowly freezing to death. She had no idea where it lead, but all the same, most likely a better place to be than out in the snow.

Whisked away into the dungeon, Samaya suddenly experienced the warmth of the dungeon's air. "Oh, so this is a dungeon. I like it."

"Why, hello there, Madam. It appears you have stumbled into my dungeon."

"Um, yes. Hey, I don't mean to be rude, but I don't plan to stay very long and it appears that the door is now missing..."

"Oh yes, always quite the bother, that one. Oh, here it is, at the other end of the dungeon."

"Glad you found it. Is there any way I could trouble you to move it a bit closer?"

"Not a problem at all... There, it should be closer now."

"Um..."

"Yes?"

"I still don't see it."

"Oh, that would be because it's only about .0238566137 inches closer to you."

"Oh, goody."

"Yes, I thought that would help. Oh, and a last word of advice, 'Avoid the white~!'"

"Avoid the... Oh. Yay," Samaya finished as the voice drifted away. The room ahead was full of tiles, some black and some white, like a chessboard. Samaya tried a black tile, only to feel a jolt go up her leg like being electrocuted. Clearly that wouldn't work. Maybe it was a glitch of some kind. The queen tried another, only to hear her boot as it slowly burned on the tile. Well, clearly the polite voice had been lying. Either that, or all of the tiles were booby trapped. Samaya decided to not wait to find out and jumped from white tile to white tile, slowly bulding speed until she was just running straight across the room. Every now and again she would hear a strange noise or a weird sensation creep up her leg, but, determined as she was, Samaya ignored them and made her way to the next antechamber. She was surprised to find more people.

"Excellent. More people stuck in this dungeon, huh?"

[Daniel Adler]

Daniel made his way across the tiles with caution, making his steps were slow and subtle to make sure those black tiles didn't suddenly decide to change itself to white. So far, the place has been nice to him – until one of them decided to change colors on a whim when he suddenly stepped on it. As the swordsman hopped backwards to dodge the trap, the tile behind him changed to white as well. Unable to escape, the white tile started glowing in bright red color before exploding, sending him flying all the way back to the entrance of the room as he left a trail of smoke from his burning cloak behind. Quickly, he took it off of his body and threw it away to the side, seemingly landing on another tile that turned white all of a sudden. Just how was he supposed to get past these without knowing its pattern? It was quite clear to Daniel by now that this tower was a work of a madman, or perhaps of the mad spirit.

"... If I could maybe use the walls, then..."

"Hey, you there, did you get pulled in here as well?"

Great, there was a voice that he'd be more than happy to hear under different circumstances. Daniel froze up on the spot upon realizing that he threw away his burning disguise... which happened to be serving as a nice little campfire in middle of the massive room. This was an awkward situation to be in indeed. He never would've thought crossing paths with Alexandra at a place like this, but life was like a box of chocolates, one could never get what they want, truthfully to say. Regardless, he was confident that this young knight was more than willing to work with him if they wanted to get out of this place alive. With that in mind, the male turned around and nodded.

"Yeah, I was going to take a shelter from the blizzard, but seems like I've ended up in a place that's even worse. At least it's kind of warm in here." Daniel replied, and just then another victim – a woman came through these doors. He wasn't sure whether or not the woman was being sarcastic, but the more the merrier, they could use whatever resource they had available to get them through this. "Well then, what a company this is, but let's leave the pleasentries off for now and focus on getting out of this tower? The tiles changing colors constantly is kind of getting annoying."

[Alexandra De'Sivier]

Alexandra glanced at the burning cloth on the tiles in the room, correctly guessing that the man before him had gotten caught in the Djinn's trap, just as he had. He didn't recognize the man at all, though his voice sounded a little familiar, and it seemed as if he was the person that had been at the Dungeon's entrance earlier.

"Ah, so those were your footprints out front... lemme guess, the panels on the floors got ya?" Alexandra asked in response to the man's comments, walking over and looking out at the checkerboard pattern spreading between them and the exit. "That Djinn's a liar, it seems....wonder if the rules in this room are different from the last?"

The Knight's attention was caught as a third person entered the same room as he and the thus-unnamed swordsman nearby, Alexandra turning to face the person, and on seeing who it was, he instantly snapped to attention while facing the woman. He had met this woman before, and had discovered her standing was of none other than a Queen. Royalty, a leader of a country and with enough authority to erase Alexandra from the public eye if she so chose.

"Greetings, Queen, Knight De'Sivier at your service. I apologize for your having become trapped in this Dungeon with us." Alexandra spoke in a formal and polite tone, standing perfectly at attention, "Allow me the honor of assisting your escape from this deathtrap, oh Queen. We shall be out before the day is done."

The Knight turned to look out over the checkerboard path once more, recalling what he knew from the last room, and he crouched down in front of a white panel and slowly reached his hand out over it. Tapping the panel, he quickly withdrew his hand and hopped back a step, tensed and ready for whatever the result was, and in doing so, he saved his arm from being impaled by a several spikes that suddenly shot out of the panel with a dreadful scraping sound. Alexandra grimaced as he inadvertently imagined what would have happened had he been standing on the panel when that happened, and he stood up and crossed his arms while thinking.

"Did that Djinn say anything to you, mister......?"