TDM 12

【 Thank you for choosing the Golden Peacock, 5-star resort and casino. You are currently registered as a WILDCARD in our system.
As a token of appreciation to all of our guests, the house and resort have worked in collaboration with the all powerful system that transmigrates souls between worlds to bring you a special excursion! All are invited to participate in our limited time event, Tits out! A Sex Dungeon! where guests can shop, craft, adventure, treasure hunt, and battle.
During this event, sexual encounters with WILDCARD guests are worth double the payout, so please keep an eye out for our new arrivals! Other supplies, such as typically banned weapons, are also available.
We appreciate our low rank guests temporarily adjusting their living quarters to accommodate this delightful experience. Extra thanks to you for your generosity! 】

WINDING MARKET
SPECIALTY SHOPS
JOBS & QUESTS
Are you looking to make big coin? Do you have the strength and endurance to take on the dungeon? Then we want YOU to join our guild's quest to sLay!
The dungeon is teeming with sexy monsters that need sLaying. All you need to do to sLay is to fuck them real good! Once satisfied, these sexy monsters may drop quality loot. Join in the hunt to sLay and consolidate drops with our guild! We're happy to make trades or buy.
Yaaassss sLay all day!
JOB POSTING ONE! BIG PAYOUT FOR EASY WORK!
I am a pharmacist looking for some brave adventurers willing to go down into the dungeon and collect dongle flower milk for me. I need at least 10 bottles! This is an important ingredient in one of my popular prescriptions. I am not athletic enough to go get it myself and my supplies are running low.
Please deliver all dongle flower milk to the medical shop in the northwest corner of the market. Please note, I need FULL bottles. Do not skimp or I won't pay!
JOB POSTING TWO! HELP A WOMAN'S GROWING BUSINESS!
I am a young lady looking to expand my make-up business. I heard rumors that there's water in the dungeon that could make an AMAZING base for make-up products. But it sounds like it's super scary in there and I don't want to go. Please, someone, help!
You can bring all bottles of dungeon water to the make-up booth in the southeast corner of the market. I'm willing to pay in chips or trade some of my current products. My face masks and nail polishes are really good!
JOB POSTING THREE! PLEASE DON'T ASK WHY!
Hello. I need many dungeon slime cores, so I am looking for everyone and anyone willing to go slime hunting and gather some for me. We can negotiate pay based upon the number of slime cores brought. Do not inquire what the slimes or their cores are needed for.
Please bring all slime and slime core deliveries to back door of the Dried and Baked Sundries shop. Thank you!
JOB POSTING FOUR! I WANT COLLECTABLES!
If you're going into the dungeon, I want collectables. If you find that fabled treasure room, bring me back something cool and shiny. I'm willing to pay good money! I don't care what it is as long as it's hard to get and I can brag to my friends about it.
You can find me drinking in the tavern. I'll be wearing expensive velvet and a tiny hat with a feather.

A WHOLE NEW BASEMENT
UPPER DUNGEON
LOWER DUNGEON

TREASURE ROOM
OOC NOTES
▶ All characters on the TDM are WILDCARDS, which means they have not yet been assigned a card value. Suits will not manifest until characters are accepted into the game.
▶ All TDMs are game canon. This TDM acts as the game's November event and is designed to provide content for players through the mods' December break. The marketplace and dungeon will ICly conclude on January 1st.
▶ Current characters may top level on the TDM. Any current characters posting to the TDM should note they are current in their subject header. The top level directory is for new characters only. We want to make sure new characters are prioritized and receive attention!
▶ Smut threads that take place on this TDM can be used for rewards. If both parties in the smut thread join the game, you may retroactively apply the character's initial card values to your 52 bank. If one character does not join the game the thread will not be applicable toward rewards (as that character would not have a card value). The character that does join would still receive a small payout for the encounter. Hopefully it was a fun thread regardless!
▶ We ask you to kindly add content warnings to your threads as appropriate.
▶ If you do not currently have permissions and kinks listed in your character’s journal we suggest leaving a note in your top level of any limits or boundaries for other players to reference.

no subject
in contrast to the wry, almost exhausted honesty with which natori has been speaking, the switch back to his artificially cheery, breezy tone of voice is jarring. in tseng's opinion, natori is lucky that the eyes don't seem inclined to close again, just for him making the admission and then immediately trying to diminish it, to brush it aside as unimportant. ]
Your clan could have chosen to make things easier on the ones who came later, if there were any, [ tseng says, thoughtful. ] Instead they made the choice that was better for them, because they knew they wouldn't be the ones to deal with the consequences. It's not ungrateful to resent them for that.
[ as they turn a corner, tseng pauses to examine a chest on a rock slightly set back from the road. once he's determined it's not a mimic, he pops it open and withdraws a shirt—it's green, probably a size too big for natori, but at least it doesn't have any embarrassing slogans on it. ]
Here. It might be big.
no subject
Thanks. I can deal with a lot worse, even if I'm risking magazine articles about how I've let myself go out looking sloppy.
[It's a light joke more to call back to his concerns about being papped than anything else, taking respite from having to be vulnerable for a moment longer. He has the same messenger bag that Tseng's seen him use to carry his exorcist tools; he folds the shirt quickly and inexpertly, then slips it into the bag. Then, out of stalling techniques, he goes back to the meat of the matter.]
I wouldn't say 'resent,' not exactly. [But the fact that that's the only piece of Tseng's recap that he disagrees with is another small admission in and of itself, and proof that he's not just protesting for the sake of it.] I know it would have meant a completely different life, and I don't even know if that life would have been better for me. Maybe I'd be daydreaming about an independent Natori clan if the situations were reversed. I'd almost certainly have been married off by now, so maybe I'd be unhappy about that. Or...
[He can feel the lizard sitting exposed on his forearm without needing to look for it, but he still looks down at it anyway. He's never met anyone who had been able to tell him what it was, and there was no reason to think that would have changed if he were raised inside another clan. He very well could have found himself exiled for being a bad omen. Or maybe the lizard wouldn't have showed up at all.
He doesn't voice either of those possibilities. Tseng had been extremely polite about it when they'd first met-- extremely polite about everything, honestly. He feels vaguely guilty for the way he'd shut the inevitable questions down on the ferris wheel. Somehow it feels like offering it up would serve as thanks for listening to him, even if it's awfully self-centered for both sides of that equation to involve Natori talking about himself.]
You can ask about it, if you want.
no subject
I understand what you mean.
[ it's not like tseng is judging natori's complicated feelings about his own circumstances. after all, he knows better than most the feeling of both begrudging the choices that led to where he is and also knowing that the alternative is likely no better. being put in an impossible situation by factors far outside his own control... tseng has no resolution for that condition, but he understands it intimately.
following natori's gaze, tseng's eyes alight on the lizard where it sits on natori's forearm. he remembers his first introduction, as it were, to the lizard as he and natori sat side-by-side on the ferris wheel, and how adamantly natori had shut down any potential curiosity. it's a little surprising to hear natori offer to talk about it now, although tseng thinks he understands the offer for what it is.
he looks up again. ]
I won't pretend I'm not curious, but I don't have to ask if it makes you uncomfortable to discuss.
[ after all, tseng's curiosity is just that—simple inquisitiveness. he doubts that knowing the answers to his questions will change much, if anything, about his regard for natori. ]
no subject
[Maybe eventually he'll get the knack of pivoting from one to the other, but for now it tends to grind all the romance to a halt. Unless he was with a very particular sort of person.]
You've probably guessed the gist of it anyway, at least the parts I can answer. It's been somewhere on my body for about as long as I can remember, and I don't know how it got there. Normal people usually can't see it, but it's only natural that an ayakashi is visible in the ayakashi realm. It doesn't do anything, as far as I can tell.
[He says that last part with the same sort of lightness that someone might say "not that I know of", but it's precisely, exactly honest. He's done extensive research trying to find information about the creature on his skin, and he hasn't been able to find anything, good or bad. And if it did do something, well. It's had over 20 years to do it already. The fact that he can't get rid of it seems too obvious to state outright.]
I can 'feel' it the same way I can feel any other ayakashi-- there's a sort of presence, a spiritual sense instead of something physical. It doesn't respond to any prompting, though who knows whether that's because it can't or it just won't. It can go just about anywhere on my body, though there is one place it's never gone. That's about the whole of it.
no subject
the rest of it is about as tseng expected. he hadn't guessed all the details, obviously, but something about the way natori talks about the lizard had suggested that it wasn't entirely a welcome guest—from there, it wasn't difficult to assume that it remained on natori's body only because he hadn't figured out how to remove it. ]
Are you trying to remove it? [ if he is, tseng figures there's no point in asking any kind of "have you tried" or "could it be" type questions; surely natori has explored every avenue by now. ] I doubt I can help with anything, but...
[ a shrug, a palms-up kind of gesture. if natori thinks of any way tseng can assist he's welcome to ask, although somehow tseng doubts he actually will. ]
Where doesn't it go? If that's not too personal to ask.
no subject
Natori doesn't retreat into the safety of flippancy-- it doesn't feel right to do so in this conversation, even setting aside any risk that the eye on the mask would close again in retribution. But that doesn't mean he says yes. He's not trying, not really-- not like when he was younger, where he'd spent his nights flipping through books in the family storehouse looking for anything that could make sense of it. Not like when he'd run himself ragged trying out ward after ward until he didn't have anything left. Now it was an idle thing, something he kept an eye out for whenever he got to flip through a new book, more a routine than a genuine search.
Things were different here. He had access to a much wider range of magical techniques, at least theoretically. Even if there was nothing back home that could explain it, there could be an answer somewhere here.
He shrugs.] I'm more interested in seeing if anyone else has come across something like it before. There are a lot of people here from a lot of different places. So I guess if you run into anything else like it... Well, excluding the suits themselves.
[He's wondered before if it was harder for the other guests to adjust to the idea of something appearing on their body that they couldn't control. It's not like it didn't annoy Natori too, but that's all it was-- annoyance. It's not a never-before-seen violation of his bodily autonomy, it's just a second ayakashi making itself at home on his skin. Though one with very noticeable side effects.]
My left leg. It's never gone past the hip on that side. [And then, tilting his head towards Tseng to invite him in on the joke, he drawls] And you'll never guess where my suit mark is.
no subject
maybe that's why tseng phrased the question as he did: are you trying to remove it versus do you want it removed. the later seems to be a foregone conclusion, but the former may or may not even be possible, especially if natori doesn't know what put the lizard on him to begin with. ]
There's no precedent for something like that on Gaia, as far as I know, [ tseng says. ] But I'll keep my eyes open.
[ it really is impressive how precisely natori can shape the cadence of his voice to give his sentences a flirtatious twist. even though tseng knows he's not actually flirting, there's a certain impulse to respond in kind. he quells it, but allows himself some answering wryness as he says, ] What an astonishing coincidence.
[ probably not a coincidence at all, actually, but they both know as much. that's the joke. then, after a second, tseng asks more genuinely, ]
What is your suit mark, if you don't mind my asking?
[ he hasn't actually seen it, after all. ]
no subject
He's not sure how much of it is wishful thinking, just grasping at an explanation that doesn't end with him losing a limb, but unlike all of the other ideas he could come up with, this one at least sounds plausible rather than willfully delusional.
But while the motive behind the placement of the mark may be up in the air, he knows for sure that the shape is the hotel fucking with him.] Take a guess. Your hints are that it's a spade and the hotel thinks it's being funny.
no subject
only to laugh abruptly, taken aback by the obviousness. ] Shiva. Not a lizard?
[ so the resort thinks it's funny, does it? he considers that, as well as the confidence natori seems to have that whatever is running this hotel is also an ayakashi of a sort, and then voices aloud the sentiment natori just thought: ]
Then maybe the smaller lizard is intimidated by whatever put that mark on you.
[ it sounds like an absurd thing to say aloud, but objectively having a demon/spirit lizard running around your body is sort of an absurd set of circumstances, isn't it? ]
no subject
[Though he supposes that most guests at the hotel can relate to that. It's not like he has the monopoly on being surprised to see a mark that appeared on his body; if anything, he should be better equipped to deal with it than anyone else. It's just that each time he sees it when half asleep, he has a moment of wondering if the other shoe was finally dropping, if the lizard was changing its behavior in a way that was heralding something worse to come.
Tseng can't see Natori's face when he looks over in consideration, but his mild surprise is probably telegraphed in the way his shoulders straighten up. It's hardly the first time someone without sight has stumbled over a very good understanding of an ayakashi's behavior, but it's usually something they put forward as a joke.]
Yes, it could be, [he says sincerely, keeping the surprise out of his voice in case it comes across as condescending.] It very well could have known that Spades would eventually make its mark there, and so stayed out of its 'territory.' You hear of things like that happening-- ayakashi avoiding a tree for centuries before the tree is eventually struck by lightening. It's a better explanation than many of the guesses I had back home.
no subject
he can't fault natori for his surprise, though, and doesn't take it as condescension. it really was a lucky guess, half-facetious. ]
I wonder... [ at the risk of making a suggestion natori has already thought of, ] If it's something J or one of the other... tenured residents of the resort might be able to help with.
[ obviously there's a certain risk inherent to trusting a ghost with something like this, and tseng couldn't blame natori if he were naturally disinclined, considering his occupation. ]
Although I confess I don't actually entirely understand what an ayakashi is, [ he adds after a second. tseng straightens so they can continue walking as they talk. ] It doesn't seem that the term refers exclusively to ghosts, and there seems to be a fairly wide range of capabilities associated with them.
[ some can be exorcised easily, like the ghosts in the elevator; others, like j and his cohort, are perhaps more challenging. ]
no subject
You should avoid making any deals with J, Tseng-san, especially if it's something as minor as this. [It's either a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, or else it's such a large problem that what Jester asked for in exchange would be astronomical. And that's if he even trusted him to play fair.] Even if the tradeoff sounds like a good deal, it's not worth it. The ones that started off human and lost it along the way are the worst ones to deal with.
[Which ties in nicely to 'what even is an ayakashi.']
No, it's broader than that. It's... what word do you use for creatures from folklore that aren't supposed to exist? Ghosts, but also demons, spirits, youkai, fey... The supernatural. There's humans, and then there's the other.
no subject
I didn't mean that you should make a deal with any of them, [ he points out. ] Only that they might be strong enough to help.
[ although tseng realizes this is a distinction that may only matter to a turk, or to someone else who's used to finding ways around obstacles that aren't entirely... traditional. or aboveboard. but then again it's not like tseng has any handy ideas for how to extort or trick any of the higher-ranked ghosts of the resort into handing over their assistance, so maybe he should just shut the hell up.
far more interesting is the question of creatures from folklore who aren't supposed to exist. as far as tseng knows, gaia doesn't have much of that, but he still tilts his head a little as he considers. ]
I'm not sure my world has an equivalent, [ he finally says. ] Our legends have powerful beings, but those beings are real and physically incarnated in creatures called deiforms. Most places don't have much by way of folklore.
no subject
Does he strike you as the sort who will help out for nothing in exchange? [he asks lightly.] Thank you for thinking of it, but no.
[He isn't expecting Tseng's response. Somehow he'd always gotten the impression that Tseng was from a fairly modern world, but that sounds like the response from someone from a long time ago. Then again, some people claim that their worlds didn't have spirits at all, so.]
Well, to be fair, ayakashi are also real, [he says, nodding down at the lizard on his forearm.] It's just that most people can't see them, and a lot of belief is waning as the country industrializes. Your deiforms probably count-- like gods, right?
no subject
That's fair. [ the lizard on natori's forearm, at present, is indeed evidence that ayakashi are very real, at least to the people who have the fortune—or misfortune—of being able to see them. ] Right, like gods. They can be seen by anyone, but it takes someone with a certain level of mana to be able to summon them.
[ maybe that's how tseng should contextualize it. not in the seeing, but in the ability to control, to use materia—which is an ability not held by every member of gaia's population, even if the elemental energy is real and seen by everyone. so, exorcists are like high-level materia users? ]
So for you, would "ayakashi" cover all of those folklore beings that can only be seen by exorcists, regardless of the type of being?
[ much like how a materia user could ostensibly access any type of materia regardless of the element? ]
no subject
Haha, how nitpicky do you want me to be? You've got the general idea, though-- "ayakashi" includes many different categories of creatures.
[And, critically, is broad enough that he never has to confront his own biases; something is either human, or it isn't. He hasn't encountered a single concept that he couldn't fit into his preexisting box, and he's not going to start now.]
If you need to specify that it's a ghost, you can just say ghost. If you want to talk about all of them... [After a moment, he indulges in his own curiosity.] When you say summoning gods, how does that work? Is it like a one-time request for intervention, or does the summoner create a long-term relationship with the god?
no subject
The latter, [ tseng says. after a second he pulls back one of his long sleeves to reveal the bracer he wears on his right wrist, inlaid with two marble-sized orbs of what appears for all the world to be glowing glass. one amber, one green. ] These are materia. In my world, materia are the mechanism by which anyone is theoretically capable of using magic.
[ the deiforms are indeed a special case, though, and tseng pauses for a moment as he considers how best to explain. ]
They're are created from the crystallization of the raw energy of the planet, [ he says gradually. ] Including the deities that serve it. By possessing a summon materia you can briefly call on a physical manifestation of that deity. Not the god itself, but... an avatar of sorts, that will come to your aid for a time and then vanish.
[ if this sounds like bullshit jrpg magic mechanics that's because it is. sorry natori. ]
The deiform can be summoned repeatedly, though, with sufficient time in between.
no subject
I hadn't realized you could use magic. [Sure, magic that anyone can use, but he'd still had the impression that Tseng didn't have access to anything like that. He once again adjusts his vague impression of Tseng from some ultramodern, ultramundane world into something apparently more nuanced.
That said, what Tseng's describing isn't unheard of in his world, either. There were techniques and tools that anyone could use if they got their hands on them, even someone without any sight at all. They were common targets for the people who had little power of their own but were still trying to make a name for themselves in the business-- and usually causing all sorts of trouble that had to be cleaned up by someone who knew what they were doing. But maybe that's too cynical a take, especially coming from someone with Natori's background. It's not as though he has room to throw stones.
Then again, not a few of those techniques were forbidden. Sometimes it was better to keep those abilities in the hands of the people who could see the consequences.
In any case, Tseng's explanations of jrpg battle mechanics are interesting but not earth-shattering. It doesn't fit as neatly into what Natori thinks of as summoning as he was expecting from his binary question, but he can still understand it. The joke is on Tseng because Natori is a big old nerd who likes learning about magic for its own sake, so even this too is exorcism in his mind.]
So there are more powerful users who can utilize these summoning-- [not spells, he makes sure to pick the right word] materia, but simpler effects can be used by anyone? [He peers at the bracer again, his curiosity probably obvious even without his face visible. They're like reusable talisman, it seems. Which leads to the obvious question:] What do these do?
they're are... terrible
It didn't come up. [ and he has a habit of not saying much about himself unless he's directly asked. natori hadn't asked if he could use magic and so tseng hadn't made mention. not that it's in any way natori's fault—tseng's caginess is just one more lingering instinct from being director of the turks, same as his inclination to get up at sunrise. ] But I am well-trained. There are stronger materia users than me on Gaia, but not many.
[ otherwise, natori has basically the right of it. tseng nods his agreement. ]
Correct. A low-level Thunder or Aero spell uses very little mana, so the only barrier is that good-quality materia are expensive. [ and the spells put out by low-quality materia are similarly low-quality. leave it to midgar to find a way to do capitalism with magic. as for the ones tseng wears: ]
This one [ he taps the green marble ] is a Lightning materia. With it I could perform Thunder, Thundara, or Thundaga spells, in order from least to most powerful.
[ as for the yellow marble, ] And this is an Assess materia. It... [ here, tseng sighs. ] Ordinarily its purpose is to allow the wearer to assess an enemy and receive information about its weaknesses and immunities and so on. But since the House can't resist their games, this one also lets me see information about someone's erogenous zones, sexual preferences and desires, the location of their suit mark... I don't use it much, obviously.
rip in pieces
When you say "stronger," do you mean in terms of the... that you have more "mana" to use, or the effects when you cast a spell are stronger than they would be if someone were to use the same materia to cast the same spell? [He picks his way carefully around the unfamiliar terminology, trying to get it right both for the sake of making his point understood and to check his own understanding of how it all fits together.] Or just that you've had more practice in deploying it strategically?
[He's used to better tools leading to better outcomes, but also better outcomes for the same tool coming from more powerful users-- there's a reason he's dragged Natsume along to activate his spell circles. What he isn't used to is the idea that someone could fundamentally increase their power level through training. They could learn to make better use of it, sure; they can rely on little tricks to try to inch out ahead, like using glasses to see ayakashi a little better. But short of extremely drastic measures-- and usually extremely forbidden ones at that-- spiritual ability in an individual can only go down.
But hearing what happened to Tseng's Assess materia breaks him out of his nerdy contemplation about JRPG battle mechanics. He snorts.] I didn't realize I had another thing to be grateful for. At least my techniques still work properly.
[Also, getting information just handed to you about weaknesses and immunities sounds both awesome and kind of like cheating?? Some folks had to memorize all that and then still got negged about it by their high school boyfriends.]
no subject
Yes. All of the above. With the right training regimen it is possible to increase your mana reserves, although there's a limit to what's possible for a human, and not every person is capable of reaching that limit. Stronger spells cost more mana, so it behooves those who use magic offensively to maximize their mana as much as possible.
[ although despite all this training tseng doesn't often use materia in battle. his preference is first and foremost for sniping or firearms, followed by martial arts, followed by materia as a last resort. this, in contrast to someone like reno, whose materia are always close at hand.
that part he doesn't explain, because he knows natori's interest is less in tseng's specific battle mechanics than it is in the concept of materia-based magic overall. ]
Small blessings. [ tseng sighs, wry. ] At least I haven't had to use Assess in a real battle scenario here. I can't imagine the damage it would do to my psyche to learn one of our resident ghost's preferred positions in bed as well as how to defeat them.
[ it is kind of cheating though, honestly. tseng won't deny that. ]
Do you want to try? —The Lightning materia, that is. It's not hard to learn and Thunder is an inexpensive spell, mana-wise.
no subject
Huh. [He doesn't know what to do with all of these worlds where spirits and magic were just-- open and acknowledged. Where some people might not be able to maximize their mana reserves, but implicitly, many can. It feels like a fundamentally different way of ordering society than what Natori is used to.] For us, it's much more fixed-- both your sight and your spiritual ability. If anything, it decreases as you age.
[He can't imagine what sort of nightmare exorcist community there would be if people could train their way into being more powerful. Maybe it'd be less catty. Almost certainly not, though.]
With this place the way it is, using their favorite position probably is how you'd defeat them. [Was there a world where they exorcised the mirror ayakashi by fucking? Almost certainly. Predictably, Natori does perk up at the idea of trying out some magic from another world.] Could I? That'd be interesting. I'm assuming it'd just draw from the same source as my spell circles.
no subject
[ tseng unfastens the bracer from around his wrist and pops the green marble out of it, then hands it over to natori to hold. it glows faintly from within, and is slightly warm to the touch, a reflection of the planetary energy contained within.
although he's sure natori could figure it out if he tried, tseng will also offer a brief explanation of how to cast using materia—how to draw on its energy, how to aim, all of that. the specifics of the explanation are omitted here just like they are in final fantasy 7. ]
Go ahead, [ tseng says when his explanation is over, stepping back slightly and to the side to get himself out of natori's eyeline while he tests out the materia. ] Give it a shot.