Get Your Towels Ready...

[these_balls]

First things first: participants of the Nightmare Castle plot, please note that there have been some changes appearing around the castle lately — these alterations are reflected in the room descriptions of all plot posts, but you can see the full list of them here!

And with that out of the way, it's time to move on to...


NIGHTMARE CASTLE: THE FINAL RECKONING


Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to what will (hopefully) be the final infopost of the Nightmare Castle plot! You've braved the nightmares, you've opened the doors, you've explored the premises, and that means it's time for...

THE FINAL BOSS FIGHT.

Please read this entire post carefully! There are very important details about how this is going to work inside!


THE BACKGROUND:

At 7:00 AM on Wednesday, October 30, another creaking groan will resound throughout the castle; as your characters may recall, the last time this castle made that noise, a new door leading to the upstairs had appeared. Well, if they decide to go check the stairwell, they'll discover that their intuition hasn't failed them; a door has appeared again, this time leading downstairs from the first floor. Because no horror movie is truly complete until our hapless heroes have explored the basement, right? Right.

However, they'll have to first get through the sigil locking the door. Unlike the upstairs doors, this one does not glow any particular color; as clever characters will probably quickly deduce, this door requires all three sigil colors pressed against it in order to unlock it, at which point it will look like this! Characters are welcome to handwave this (pun intended) if necessary; however, please try to find some CR to accompany you down there! You're going to want it, after all, because once you get down those winding stairs, you're going to discover that you're...well. Here.





DON'T YOU KNOW? YOU SHOULD NEVER GO IN THE BASEMENT.


KEY:

• RED areas are inaccessible regions! This time, characters have a little less discretion in what they perceive as the reason for the inaccessibility; it'll either be something like a broken or crumbling wall, a locked door, an archway overgrown with dangerous-looking vines, thick fog, or something else of that nature!

• The GREEN area is the set of stairs you used to get down here in the first place! Again, this is here so you know where your starting point is in relation to everything else.

THE LEADUP:

As you can see, the basement is structured such that there's really no place to go save for toward that purple X, which coincidentally happens to be residing directly below that Spooky Fountain people have been having strange encounters with all week. And as we're sure you've already guessed, that purple X is the Final Boss you've all been waiting for — and it's waiting for you in a room that looks something like this.

(The Goblin King called; he wants his labyrinth back.)

Like the other enemies your characters have been fighting thus far, the Final Boss is a massive formless creature whose attributes will be influenced by what your characters expect to see, or perceive as "monstrous"; though the Final Boss will not be moving from its position in the center of the circular chamber on the map, it will be sending out swarms of lesser monsters like the ones you've been fighting on the upper levels to harass anybody who might get too close. The actual layout of the circular chamber is basically a big doughnut: there's a wide platform that runs around the entire circumference, but a deep hole/pit in the center where the boss is standing. Or, well, "towering", really. Hence, you can't just walk up to the final boss; its feet aren't even visible from where it's standing in comparison to you.

When the Final Boss spots your characters entering the room, it will send out a wave of monsters to attack the intruders. But no problem, right? You've got your Pokemon back! Just throw out your Pokeball and order your faithful Pokemon to attack and—

...

...Watch as they shrink back and vehemently refuse.

None of your Pokemon, regardless of personality, will attack the Final Boss or its minions. Which means you're pretty much screwed, right?

Wrong.

See, as you might've guessed by now, everything that's taken place here is a dream (maybe), and that means all your characters have to do is...dream a little bigger.


THE PAYOUT:

Upon entering the boss chamber, characters who possessed supernatural powers in canon will discover those powers returning; characters who specialized in a particular weapon will have the ability to manifest one out of dream mojo. And characters who came from slice-of-life canons and/or had no particularly fantastic abilities of their own? Well, in your dreams, you too can be Spiderman, folks. Every participant in the final battle will have access to either their canon powers, their canon weapons, or a temporary burst of dream-granted powers (see below for details on this one) with which to fight the final boss.

Here's how it works.

Because this is a dream, your characters' abilities/weapons/etc are all being powered by an individualized source we're dubbing a "dream battery". Using your powers/abilities or keeping your weapon manifested uses up charge from the dream battery; as the battery drains, your character will become more and more fatigued until at last their battery runs out and they fall asleep. If your character falls asleep, they cannot be awakened again; they have KO'd from the fight for the duration of the final battle. Also, like in the encounters with monsters in the upper levels, if the Final Boss or its minions hits your character for damage, your character will experience fatigue along with pain, which will again put them closer towards passing out and falling asleep.

Thus, regardless of how powerful your character's abilities are in canon, they're running on a finite power source. Sure, Goku may be able to unleash the Kamehameha...once. But once he does, he's out of power and thusly out of the fight. So choose your world-ending attacks wisely!

For characters without canon abilities, we urge you to visit our Powers Request Subthread below and ask us for some superpowers! This can be just about anything you want — from the traditional "I want to shoot fireballs from my hands" to the character-specific "I want a hope beam that will let me inspire other people to fight better just from listening to the melodious sound of my voice." Be creative, be true to your characters, and have fun with it! However, note that this option is only for characters with no canon abilities/special weapons; Luke Skywalker is restricted to gaining back The Force for the duration of the bossfight, and cannot request the ability to shoot lasers from his eyes as well or instead.


HOW TO WIN THE BOSSFIGHT:

No man is an island, and this particular nightmare is such that no one person is powerful enough to defeat it! Therefore, the way to beat the boss is not the product of how hard you hit it, but by how many people are hitting it. If enough people join in, the boss will be vanquished, and your characters will achieve the Win condition for the plot! Here's how that will work:

On the plot masterpost, we have created a Bossfight Participation Subthread. Between the time when the log for the Final Bossfight goes up and 7:00 AM EST on October 31, participating characters must tag into the log with either one top-level comment or one response to a top-level comment and then link us to it in that thread. We will be using that proof of participation to determine whether or not the participating characters have achieved the win condition for the plot.


☆ THE NUMBER TO MEET OR BEAT IS 55 PARTICIPANTS ☆.

If FIFTY-FIVE or more characters tag into the bossfight log before the 7:00 AM EST deadline on Halloween, everyone wins the plot! If not, everyone loses the plot.

NOTE THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FIGHT THE BOSS IN ORDER TO HAVE "PARTICIPATED". As we mentioned on an earlier post, so long as your character is there in some capacity for at least one tag, they get credit for showing up and will be counted toward the final total.


Some suggestions of things you could do to participate in the log are:

• Fight the boss
• Assist people who are fighting the boss
• Give an inspiring speech to increase morale among the people who are fighting the boss
• Fight the lesser monsters while other people fight the boss
• Flee from the lesser monsters while other people fight the boss
• Become imperiled and require assistance from someone else who is fighting the boss
• Rescue someone who has become imperiled while you're fighting the boss
• Scream in abject terror at the sight of the boss
• Run away from the boss
• Throw a Pokeball at the boss
• Throw a shoe at the boss
• Throw everyone's shoes at the boss

The possibilities are endless.


IT IS HIGHLY IMPORTANT THAT YOU GET YOUR CHARACTER'S ONE COMMENT IN AND LINK US TO IT DURING THE PROVIDED TIME WINDOW. Obviously, you're not limited to one comment and we highly encourage people to play out their encounters with the boss to their heart's content. However, for the purposes of adjudicating whether or not the plot has been won, participating characters must tag the log and show us proof of it on the participation thread. That is the thread we will be using to do the final count; we will NOT be checking the log post itself for the tally. IF YOU FAIL TO LINK US TO YOUR PARTICIPATION COMMENT, YOU WILL NOT BE COUNTED. So make sure to get it in to us in a timely manner!

Win or lose, the plot will ICly conclude at 11:59:59 PM EST on October 30, and all participating characters will be returned to their bodies at 12:00:01 on Halloween, after which they'll probably sleep through the night and wake up properly at around 7:00 AM EST. Whether or not they wake up with a goody bag filled with Fabulous Prizes sitting next to them is entirely dependent on whether or not they won the plot!

NOTE: Though the plot is ICly concluding at 11:59:59 PM EST, we will be extending the window of opportunity for your characters to get their participation comments in to us until 7:00 AM EST on Halloween! This is to give people a reasonably equal chance at getting their tags in without being penalized for being in a non-EST time zone. However, that window extension is OOC only! For your characters, their time in Nightmare Castle ends at the stroke of midnight leading into Halloween.


THE SUMMATION:

SO. To sum up, here's what you need to do sometime between now and 7:00 AM EST on Thursday, October 31st:

• Make cool plans for how you're going to participate in this boss fight!
• Ask us questions if need be!
• Head over to the Final Boss Log once it's posted!
• Tag into it in some capacity with your participating characters!
• Link us to those tags here!
• Encourage all your friends to do the same!
• Have fun threading around in the log and wait for the announcement from us as to whether or not you've won the plot!

~

☆ REMEMBER: IF YOUR CHARACTER DOES NOT POST TO THE BOSSFIGHT LOG AT LEAST ONCE (AS A TOP-LEVEL COMMENT OR IN RESPONSE TO SOMEONE ELSE'S TOP-LEVEL COMMENT) BEFORE THE CUTOFF, THEY WILL NOT COUNT TOWARD THE 55-PARTICIPANT GOAL! ☆

~

QUICK LINKS

QUESTIONS FOR MODS | BADASS NORMAL REQUEST THREAD | BOSSFIGHT PARTICIPATION CHECK-IN

Comments

ASK QUESTIONS HERE!

[these_balls]

[paladinlost]

Ash's weapon specialty is a little big. Would he be able to recreate it? Use it as some sort of one-shot special attack because that is one hell of a battery drain? Or would he count as a powerless character (and be proud of it, thank you very much)?

[these_balls]

I should've known I'd get a Gundam question, man.

Which would you prefer? If you'd like him to summon his Gundam, we can definitely figure out some stipulations and restrictions for that (maybe make it a set of personal armor resembling his Gundam that gives him many of the same capabilities?), but if you'd prefer to have him be counted as "powerless" and give him a different set of abilities entirely, we can work with that, too! I think he's a unique enough case that it could go either way, really.

Re: ASK QUESTIONS HERE!

[beholdmydemons]

...lmao okay I apologize if this is an obnoxious question and I do have a simple fallback if you guys say "fuck it, that won't work" so I am completely fine with that as an answer

but

demon summoning.

Point of complication 1: the demons themselves; I have a canonpoint-appropriate stock of three set up for Walter, but they are their own distinct entities and come with a lot of the associated difficulties.

Point of complication 2: It might count as a "weapon specialty" and not an innate power, because it's all a function of the Demon Summoning Program on that computerized Gauntlet that's been deactivated since Walter showed up (and only certain people are able to use it, so it is a specialty and not just something anyone can pick up). Regaining the power would be as simple as reactivating the Gauntlet, but it's still kind of different.

Point of complication 3: what kind of "battery" drain would this even have, because after a certain point it's probably not even worth it.

[these_balls]

Well, bear in mind that this is a dream, so things don't have to make perfect sense — for some things, it's as easy as "the character expects this to happen, and so it will", much in the same way that dreams don't always adhere to perfect logic!

That said, are the demons in question characters in their own right, such that they could be apped as playable characters into Route?

If not, then "summoning" them (obviously, he wouldn't really be summoning up demons, but rather sort of creating them out of dream expectation, if that makes sense) would be similar to sending out a Pokemon to fight for him, right? And if that's the case, then it's certainly possible; the way it would work is that Walter's ability to maintain the "demons" as tangible creatures would be tied to his dream battery, and the more hits they took, the more it'd drain and the more exhausted he'd get, until the point where he couldn't sustain them and KO'd himself.

[dreamsofahero]

Is there a general guideline to use for how much power a character's "dream battery" has stored up to use? I ask because when powers are restored one of mine is technically a demigod and the other has a lightning god in his right hand so it'd help to have a solid idea of at what point they get cut off. :|b

[these_balls]

It's largely open to character interpretation, within reason. Every character has the same level of "charge" in their dream battery, regardless of what their power levels would be in their own canons; thus, if the only thing a character has in her is a godlike attack, then she's not going to be able to use very many of them before she runs out her battery. The power of the attacks is variable based on the character's canon; their ability to fire them off is finite.

However, if you want a point of reference, then a good rule of thumb is that a character casting demigod- or god-level attacks is probably only going to be able to use one or two of them before knocking out, assuming they're attacking at full godlike power.

[eagletalons]

You say powers and weapons they had. What about powers they used to have, but then were lost due to canon plot things? 'Cause Hope here had magic way back in FFXIII, battle magic and support magic and healing magic and summoning! magic, but then lost all his ability at the end of the game and turned back into a Muggle.

[these_balls]

Good question! Would Hope expect to have those powers in a battle scenario, at his given canonpoint?

Re: ASK QUESTIONS HERE!

[tearsofademon]

Out of curiosity, do the Final Boss and his minions use magic attacks, and if so, would Ryner's Alpha Stigma be able to analyze and/or copy them? ...As a side note, is there anything magical that he'd be able to pick up on in the surroundings?

Also, now that I've seen the three dots together and it's finally hit me like a ton of bricks, I see you're using the Tears of Princes' color scheme. ♥

[these_balls]

I'm not familiar with Ryner's canon, sorry, so I'm going to have to ask you to elaborate on what his Alpha Stigma actually does before I can give you an answer to that!

Re: ASK QUESTIONS HERE!

[radeonthecity]

Following up on the summoning question above, is there a size or quantity limit to what can be summoned? Domri would likely have access to some pretty impressive specimens, along with a herd of slightly less impressive specimens. I'm assuming the wurm that would only be able to fit in this room if it coiled up really tight is right out, but what kind of upper limit should I be looking at otherwise?

[islandshore]

So, Riku's an odd case. At his current canon point, he has none of his powers, but he has heard of what he's capable of later on. Would it be possible for some loose interpretation of his canon powers to manifest based on what knowledge he does have? E.g. some limited elemental magic and a Keyblade.

[hipstermark]

I might as well check - Vanille will be using Cure on people (in-canon, it heals HP in case you don't know) because she's not much of a fighter. Will that help recharge the Dream Battery/the ability for people to stay awake (if only a little), since it will most likely help with restoring damage done by the smaller minions?

[show_my_cannons]

Does being a robot count as a canon power? If so... would it be possible for Ironhide to regain his robot-self for the boss fight?

... probably not the same size though, since that wouldn't fit in the room, but maybe a severely scaled down version? Maybe human-sized?

[babel_hacker]

The others already covered the summoning questions, so!

Should I assume Atsuro's Totally Not a DS/3DS COMP will pop up and work (well, seems to work because dream but you know what I mean), since it's likely classified as a specialised weapon and he use it to channel energy for his skills.

the dream battery energy drain would be familiar because lmao physical moves with HP costs...

Re: ASK QUESTIONS HERE!

[surpassedjupiter]

Just to clarify... The powers only activate after they're in? Or could they start to feel the effects when they reach the boss door/activate the lock?

Also, three people are needed to open the door, but a group larger than that can go inside, yes? I assume it works similar to the other doors, where it's open as long as the unlockers have contact with it.

Re: ASK QUESTIONS HERE!

[usedswift]

probably a super-dumb question that's answered higher up in the post, but Tenten's canon ability is to summon ridiculous amounts of weapons from paper scrolls in her possession. Assuming she gets said scrolls/ability back, is there a hard limit to how many weapons she can summon? or is that going to just be determined by the dream battery -- the more she summons, the lower the battery goes.

[dressofheaven]

So you mentioned that summoning creatures which wouldn't be appable as player characters would be okay. What about ones that might be? Say... Ilya's loyal Servant, Berserker? (Aka Mothalovin Hercules?)

Also, she has the ability to paralyze things by looking into their eyes. Odds of Not!Chernabog turning to look the tiny girl in the face at some point in the fight?

[healing_wish]

Once upon a time, there was a completely normal girl, who went through many different timelines to become a magical girl... And she's from the last timeline, before she becomes the ultimate Madoka, or well anything really, since, ooops, I took her from right before she gets any powers! Anyway, she does know the things she's been able to do in the previous timelines and she draws her magical girl outfit + bow and arrows to her sketchbook even when she doesn't know about her past.

So, question! Madoka is from the moment, when she doesn't have any powers, but since she has heard / knows what she can do as a magical girl -- is it possible for her to get her bow into this fight? Of course she wouldn't be able to use ultimate Madoka's explosive power level with it! If she could get her bow here, could she do normal magical arrow shooting and 3 magical arrows shooting as she's done both on previous timelines in her canon? ...Though she might also need someone to help on how to even shoot with a bow at first, but anyway. orz.

[exeggutorhead]

So Envy's main superpower is transformation. So if he were to, say, turn his arm into a bladed weapon, would he lose his dream battery power per transformation or would it be a steady loss for as long as he stayed transformed?

[ghostytrainer]

Faize has a support spell called Enlighten which temporarily boosts a characters Intelligence stat to make their magic skills more powerful. Could this possibly function to temporarily boost other character's dream batteries or would it just be a power boost for magic users?

[darkenedgales]

OH NO MORE QUESTIONS

But really I just want a clarification so I know if I'm doing this right: say the character's powers are kind of vague and only activate in certain situations -- such as Boss Fights™, because we all know how that works -- so, if the character wants and expects them to work that way, they would, correct? wow that made more sense in my head

ALSO it's connected to summoning monsters, which I believe has been confirmed to be fine...?

Re: ASK QUESTIONS HERE!

[ghostpepper]

OKAY so I browsed around and saw Trap had a similar-ish question, but I figure I'll ask it anyway. With the canon point I took Kushina from, she already had the Kyuubi (the one from canon, not her Vulpix lmfao) ripped out of her (probably within an hour of her eventual death). Given what canon's outright said about the properties of her chakra and hints that I've developed to headcanon, I have a question that may come in two parts: Even though they've definitely been separated, can she have the Kyuubi as she remembers slapped back in her for a bit for the chakra reserves she would've been accustomed to for most of her life?

If the answer to this is yes, my next question is would utilizing his chakra drain her "dream battery" thing a bit faster or go at a normalish rate?

WHOOPS I HAVE A THIRD QUESTION. 8B How effective would her chakra chains be in terms of a time limit for holding the big bad not!Chernabog down?

Re: ASK QUESTIONS HERE!

[lieutenantantichrist]

About activity check: I love this event and I've barely gotten a start on everything I want to do with it, so it would be cool to be able to focus on for a while. Would it be possible to use event threads for November's AC?

I'm guessing probably not, since that'd be an exception to how things usually work, but I figure it couldn't hurt to ask.