Author: Hades

The dog days of summer have cavorted past, the chill of autumn reaches its tendrils into the warmth of each day, tinting the treetops with edges of fire. All Hallows Eve approaches, the day the Devil and his ilk take a walk about the earth from sundown to sunup. You'd best look to your rosaries and keep your doors locked, that night. Ah, but perhaps you do not believe. Perhaps you think the howls and destruction outside comes merely from young hooligans having fun. May God have mercy on your unrepentant soul! Come, come and see for yourself... journey through Hell and in doing so, realize your own sins and repent of them!

You need not make this journey alone. There is, indeed, safety in numbers. You will be admitted in groups of three or four, with a guide to take you through safely. Well... perhaps safely is not the word. But if you listen to their guidance, you should at least have a sporting chance. After all, you don't really want to find out what happens when you die in Hell, do you?

So, come! Whether drawn by pure curiosity, a true faith, or even the desire for riches, you never know what you may find in the Inferno!

I'll see you in... Abysmal Abyss' Abyss ...October 1st!



OOC:

A note for nit-pickers, just in case:
Yes, I know the Divine Comedy takes place during Easter. I threw in the allusions to Halloween just because the event starts on October first and the candy-gorging holiday will occur during the Inferno's duration.

Alright, now on to the important stuff...

Just as this event is, IC, an unofficial (and actually slightly illegal) one, this event is also completely unofficial OOC. That means it's not being run by any of the usual mods and admins of this site (but has been approved by them), nor does it go into the Special Events section. It will occur in the Delta server, and can actually be graded as a normal quest. In fact, if you're not already in the middle of a quest you want rewards for, I would strongly suggest taking them for this "event". Should be good for a level or two, at least. :3

In addition to whatever you might get for grades, there will be prizes given out at the end of the event. There are different categories for scoring, and the team who wins a certain category will receive the prize. To actually be able to buy some sort of good prize, therefore, there will be a 200 GP entrance fee for each person participating. The prizes for categories will either be some sort of item or simply a large cut of the GP. Because this isn't an official event, no rares are up for grabs, sorry.

Here's how teams work:

Each team will consist of 3 - 4 members.
If you are in a clan, your team members should be clan-mates!

Yes, that's right. This event is meant to be primarily a competition between the different clans that we have on divvy. Clans can (and are encouraged to) have more than one team participate! If you are not in a clan, you can either gather some other unaffiliated Divvers and make your own team, or simply post here and we'll hook you up with a team. For those in a clan, the only cases in which we will accept you not being with your clan team is either your clan cannot produce enough people to create its own team, or there is not enough room on the current team to include you, but not enough other people for a second team.

Each team will have its own thread in which to post. Once the event opens (each team will respond to the same starting post in a thread created by myself or another Dynasty member) the team has a week for every member of it to post. Once every person has posted at least once, or once the week is up, a member of the Advent Dynasty will appear in your thread to be your guide (or "Virgil"). You must have at least three people to continue on, so if you had a team of four and one drops or has not posted by October 7th, the event moves on without them. From then on out, each new challenge will last one week, with the Virgil acting as DM to respond to player's attempts and to move the team on when the week is over, whether the challenge is completed or not. At the bottom of the Inferno, you will face the final boss!

The categories for grading are:
Completion - There will be a bonus prize for each team who completes every challenge.
Speed: For each challenge, it will be noted which team completes it first. The team with the most 'first places' wins this prize!
Quality: The Divergence standard, you'll get better prizes for better writing. Each team's Quality score will be evaluated at the bottom of the dungeon, and payout will be according to that. Hint: don't sacrifice too much quality for speediness.
Teamwork: This is a team event, after all! Works the same way as Quailty - the better you do at it, the better your prizes.
Final Boss: Will be a duel format. If you win, you win big!

To sign up for this event, post here (IC or OOC is fine, so long as all team members are mentioned). Feel free to ask questions, as well. The 200 GP will be collected when the event begins.

Oh, and a random note: Hacks ARE usable for this event. :3 Have fun, Mainers.

I'll Go.

The Anima Mundi is submitting its official entry. We will be entering two teams.

Centrus, Raquar [as per discussed with you, 'Vei-san], and Xantos on the first team, and Viva, Matthias, Mizu, and Teishu on the second.

A 1,800 GP deposit is coming from the Anima Mundi, and I'll make sure Raq gets his 200 to you as well.

*signs up*

Hey, any other teams need to hurry up and post here! You've only got a few days left. :P

Last day to post, everyone! (there's only 30 days in september-COUGH) Poke your leaders to post up their teams. If you can't get ahold of them or are not sure of the plans, but want to participate, sign up anyway. Better safe than sorry. This will have no effect on what team you will be matriculated into should your leader sign the clan up after you've posted.

I'm signing up.

*pays necessary 200 GP*

I'm signing up my team consisting of myself, Savior X, Usagi, and Ruikage *vomits 800 GP and quietly slips away*

*Blinks at the unusual money-handling method, then sets down 800 GP of her own*

For myself, Dien, Shenmock and... a fourth. May we turn over the last name once we have it?

Signup time drawing to a close! There's about half an hour left for any teams still wanting to do it. (Yes, I'm running on East Coast time.)

EDIT: Okay, time's up! From here on out, this thread is for questions and comments only.

Our teams are:

Centrus, Raquar, Kashi and Xantos (Anima Mundi)

Viva, Matthias, Mizu, and Teishu (Anima Mundi)

Virage, Savior X, Usagi, and Ruikage (Swordbreakers)

Senna, Dien, Shenmock, and Lyra (Swordbreakers)

Question: Do I have to put up with Kashi?

I joke.

Real Question: When should we expect threads opened and Dante Virgil assignments?

I'm not an idiot. Promise. =D

You mean Virgil assignments? You ARE Dante, my dear. :P

Sometime tomorrow (that is, the first), unless something weird goes wrong.

EDIT: To clarify, the threads open today. You'll get your Virgils in a week.

So, just out of curiosity, *pulls out a map* where exactly can these "threads" be found? o.O lol

Yeah, I'm really sorry.

Life happened. >_o

It's coming. I can link here if need be.

Lol, not a problem. Just when you said that the threads will be open today, I wasn't sure if you were refering to the "evening day of Oct 1 2008, 07:22 PM" or today today =P No rush here.

Also, for a real question. When these threads open up, I'm assuming we will have the time before the event starts for our characters to "meet and greet"?

The opening post is written and will be critiqued and posted by tomorrow (Friday)! Good luck to everyone :).

EDIT: Also, if you would like some background information to work off of regarding Inferno, this is an absolutely amazing site for helping to guide your thought process or even to be able to better unlock puzzles or foresee potentially dangerous situations (in hell? no way :o). Obviously, your character has to know the information if you choose to use it to solve a puzzle, so keep that in mind (that's not a rule, that's just...clarity in storyline). For example, if Stane had never read Inferno, he would not know that there's a hidden easter egg in tower 42. If you're reading this and saying "DUH, wtf are you wasting my eyes for" the reason is because I don't want teams getting docked points because I posted a link...See you all in hell.

Well, not exactly a 'meet and greet' time, no.

More like a 'Oh hai, I'm being eaten by monsters, too!' time. >P
(It's Hell. What did you expect, a tea party?)


The posts are up. n__n

Linkies:

AM1 (Cent, Raq, Kashi, Xan)

AM2 (Teishu, Viva, Matthias, Mizu)

SB1 (Savior X, Virage, Usagi, Ruikage)

SB2 (Senna, Dien, Shenmock, Lyra)

Oh, another question. So, should we start out posts right from when we are warped into the field or are we allowed to start them before we actually get to there, like if our team decided to meet up first then all warp there together?

As long as the storyline is consist between your party members, I doesn't matter. Contact them, or go with whatever the first reply does.

Hello Doberman loves delicious nutrients!

Fixed it for you. :3

Good to see the Anima Mundi groups doing really well. :3 Great job guys, your DMs should have appeared or be appearing today sometime.

Swordbreakers... you have until the 10th (that's Friday) to post. Anyone who hasn't posted by then is out, I'm sorry to say. And you need at least 3 people for the team to carry on, so... group one especially needs to get a move on!

I hope everyone is having fun so far. :3

Since I can't post in the SB forum...

Someone tell me what we're doing or how we're going to progress here, because otherwise I'm simply going to make a post tonight about how Ruikage goes into the field and starts to have fun with hell hounds.

Sorry Ruikage, sadly we're waiting on Kiwi. >__>

Basically Kiwi said he wanted to make a general post in both of the quests that would have him giving us the money and doing some other talking and what not. <__<

He said that it should be up by tonight, but I personally am just waiting until he posts before I make mine. If he doesn't have anything up by tonight, go ahead and post as I will be doing the same.

Ly said that Kiwi's internet is down, so I guess we can still hold out until tonight and then move on., or we can just go ahead and post.

I'll wait till tomorrow evening then I'm gonna put my post together and have it ready by late Wednesday. If we doesn't post, I'll just RP it out for what Kiwi would most likely say or something like that.

Sorry about that, I posted under the wrong account. ^^;

Anyways, post is up. Does the round end at Midnight EST on Friday, so another...32 hours? Or is that extended onwards?

>.>;

When are we going to have Virgil come to light our way?

Should have posted by now. >__<
By tomorrow at the latest, I hope.

Well, both Anima Mundi groups are doing quite well so far. :3

Since we're getting into the swing of things now, I'd just like to make a clarifying statement. In order to complete a challenge, every member of the team must post related to it at least once, and in the case of riddles and the like, the correct answer must be in at least one of those posts. The amount of time that your group is considered to have taken in a challenge is determined as follows:
The start time is when your Virgil posts the challenge. The end time is when the last of the four people have posted after there is a correct answer.

For example, AM2's first challenge started on the 8th, when Stane posted. Cent, Kashi, and Raq then posted, and finally Xan posted with the answer to the riddle. Had Xan posted the answer first, the timer would still not have stopped until the other three had also posted.

So you see? Teamwork is very VERY important. Use it wherever possible! ^_~

AM1! I'm AM2...

Not that it matters, haha. I just felt like being a bother.

Now, that leads to an interesting question. Stane is having us solve the riddle by asking yes or no questions via IM, so I assume the easiest answer is just simply everybody needs to guess at least once. Or should we actually put up posts about it?

Compile a post however you want, but if I was in your situation, I would put the most identifying questions in my post.

Remember: these are yes/no questions. Not right/wrong questions. Go ahead general questions: is it red? does it howl at night? does wear a dress? Things like that. Just to clarify as I haven't got any questions yet...which is odd. Oh, and go ahead and leave offline messages if you want too. I -should- get them.

<_< Oops, sorry, AM1.

Yes, I would suggest saving the questions you ask offline and having your characters ask your ancient master them with the response as given by Stane. That way, you won't have really tiny posts of 'i ate food and guessed this particular answer'.

Sigh. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this.

Obviously, people are having a great deal of difficulty keeping up with this event. I designed it to be fast-paced in the hopes that it wouldn't turn into something that would drag on forever (like some previous major events >_>). However, I know it's getting into heavy homework season, and with NaNo and for a few people, health issues, this isn't working out. Technically, at the moment, the only team that has stayed (barely) within the one-week limit thing is AM2. SB2 had to be whisked on past an incomplete challenge one, and I'm rather worried about SB1.

So... talk to me, please, participants and DMs. I don't want to be pushing you all past incomplete events, because that takes the fun out of it all. Should the time period of events be stretched out, say to two weeks? I'd rather not, because I feel that would reduce interest and make the event drag on far longer than I should. However, I'm sure most of you are busy. Or have you already lost interest? I'd be sad to have to prematurely end the event, but if that is what the majority of you want, then so be it. :/

Just let me know so I can fix things and get them running again. Kay? :3

I don't think extending the time limit is going to help if people just aren't posting anyway, to be honest. While I don't like the idea, it may be in the interest to give it another week, and then if things still aren't working, to end the event early. Not really what I'd like but it may be necessary if no one's gonna post.

As much as I hate to kill the event soon, I'll have to second what Locke said. :unsure:

Personally I've not been posting as fast as I could, if only for the fact I like to let one or two people post between me so that it doesn't feel like I'm sucking up the whole quest, especially in quests with three or more people. I know I could have every other post be mine if I was so inspired, but when I do that, it feels like I'm hogging the spotlight. Due to that, my activity largely depends on the activity of my teammates.

I know Raq has been trying to get ahold of Cent for some scripting for his post. I was talking to Stane earlier and he'd mentioned we'd fallen out of the time limit, and before this showed up, I was planning on dropping for a quest with Hax, since I was in it for the event rewards and I haven't done a quest with him in ages. Magras was also saying he has been incredibly busy of late, nano, homework, etc. I don't remember exactly what but it's in the AM1 thread in our clan spot.

Perhaps give it a week and grade it where it stands? That'd probably be my inclination, since most people seem to have either forgotten or been caught up in a whirlwind of work, but probably wouldn't want to have it all for nothing.

Like Xan said, tween Midterms last week and not being able to get ahold of Cent didn't help certainly. Although there is some miscommunication due to teams as I know in at least our case the riddle was solved very soon, but due to my lack of posting I'm assuming nobody else wanted to post ahead of me or something like that.

My thoughts are that if you think extending the time limit will ruin it don't do it. I don't personally agree with the grade it now, as at least in my case I've written shit for it but then again its not up to me so do what you think makes it best.

If it comes down to just AM2 then its just AM2.

I signed up for the event tentatively, knowing that I likely wouldn't have the time needed to participate in a descent through Dante's conception of Hell. I had signed up in hopes that life would cooperate. It seems that life had other plans. As intriguing as an event that descends through Hell is, it's not something I can do right now. Dunno about my team, but I'm done with it. Sorry.

That, and I lost reason for Dien to actually be there. He doesn't work so well in normal fields since having been infected by twilight...