Part 114: Day 46 - Gameplay

Day 46: Gameplay

Music: neutral 4


Here's another look at our loading screen, now that every main department's been added.





The mouse cursor is guest-starring again today because I forgot to turn it off after doing the YouTube version of the fight and grabbed all of my footage with it.

In other news, surprise! The endgame is nothing but Core Suppressions, one after another. This is why we can't do any more suppressions after this day-we're busy with the Kether Core Suppression all week.



The Midnight of White? Ordeals come in White?

They do now. You'll get quite acquainted with them soon enough.

And I have to beat one of their Midnights to prove myself worthy to continue.

Of course. It should be a trivial task for one who's made it so far.

Right. Team?

Talk to me. What's up?

Make it snappy, I'm gearing up.

You couldn't even wait until the day started..?

You're contacting the employees? All they need are our orders.

I don't do things the normal way. It's what's gotten me this far. Anyways, all Captains-we're in a Core Suppression, with unknown conditions. You've all seen plenty of them by now, so you should know what to do. From this moment until further notice, you're acting Sephirot.

Shouldn't I be breaking into your office? You're not any good at this kind of thing alone.

_{Excuse me?}

I need all hands on the floor, Zaida. Keep me posted if anything seems off.

I'll keep an eye on it.

And I'll ensure we have enough tourniquets for everyone!

Will that be all, Manager?

Yeah. Remember to proceed with caution. Let's roll, team!



Music: Second Trumpet


My, this brings back memories… Just pretend I'm not even here. My only duty is to watch.

You're not even going to fight?

Not at all. As I said, this is a chance to show you belong on this stage.



Day 46 is a chance to acclimate to the new rules associated with endgame. For starters, Meltdowns are back! There are only a couple of them per level, but if we're getting into the endgame after a straight 1-45 run without any it could catch us by surprise.

This is also the point where I stop playing around. I'll show things off when I can, but there are threats which I need to get on top of immediately in order to get through without losses. The game is done holding back, so I'm going to methodically dismantle it.



Oh, Mizu. I need a favor.

Huh? Okee-dokie! What's up?

Since everything's going to be crazy from now on, I need you to hold back on greeting the new Abnormalities again.

But-but-!

It's okay. You've greeted them before a bunch. And I need you to be Binah, so you can't run around.

I feel like Binah ran around a couple days ago…

If you destroy the facility I'm putting you in time-out.

Aww! Fiiiine. I'll just greet today's hard enough for the whole week!

...Yeah, that should be fine. We shouldn't run into any trouble today just yet.

You know, I was never sure quite what was wrong with her.

That's a… long story.

Still, it's impressive that she actually listens to you.



Our first Abnormality today is a set of broken-up Samurai Armor. We'll talk more about it in a few moments. As for our second…



Ooh, Mr. Shooty! Nice! I was wondering when you'd show up~

It's a demonic soldier with a very nice gun.



For the first meltdown level, I focus primarily on the two newest Abnormalities while having Tylana deal with WhiteNight.

What is… that thing?

A very loud, very obnoxious bean.

I suppose a new Abnormality was inevitable at some point. We'll need to make a training video for it.

You made those things?

I did much during my tenure... but that's a story for another time.



The main room of Architecture is massive, dwarfing any other in terms of length. The hallways on either side are also gargantuan, running the entire length of the facility.



How long does Mizu normally take in there..?

Not this long.

It's no big deal. Longer she's here the more time we can go without doing anything. More importantly… why're you here, Twee?

Oh, I was just in the area.



Mizu unlocks the Abnormality's name quickly enough, so say hello to Der Freischütz-or Der Shooty as I usually call him. He's a Repression trainer who requires a Justice of 3 to work with him safely, making him ideal for training after Hod's suppression is completed.



He also comes with a special work type instead of Attachment, called Request. Clicking on it takes up either 10% of our current energy or 10, whichever is more. It can't be used if we don't have at least 10 energy.



Clicking Request while we have the energy brings us to this screen, where we select where we would like the bullet to go. The cursor now becomes a bullet, with a trail of bullets coming off of it as we move it around the screen. As far as I'm aware, there's no way to go back from this screen. If we accidentally click Request instead of Repression, well… we just lost 10% of our energy totals, I guess. Once we click...



Der Shooty opens a portal in his room, and fires a shot where we told him to. It goes from left to right through the entire facility, dealing 80 Black damage to anything in its path. Every 7th requested shot is fired randomly instead of where it's supposed to be targeted, and if his QC ever drops to 0 he will fire randomly as well. He's very simple, and very useful for handling QoH's needs before getting Execution bullets.



Ooh, and Mr. Armor. I always wondered what it'd be like to be inside you...

The Armor deals Red damage, and responds well to Instinct-but if an Agent with 1 Fortitude works with it they'll instantly be killed. At this point in the game, it's no problem.



Its true name is Crumbling Armor, and there is… one more notable thing about it.



We have Twee perform Repression work on it. Doing so will ensure that Twee gets its E.G.O gift.



Woah… you're on fire.

It was just a TETH, Steve. Nothing unusual, we've all worked with worse.

No… I mean… you're actually, literally on fire.

Oh. So I am!

The gift from Crumbling Armor is very powerful, but it comes with some caveats. First off, if she does any Attachment work with any Abnormality ever again, Twee will instantly die upon entering the cell. Secondly, if we do more Repression work with any other Abnormality, it will progress through three more stages.



The first work changes it from Inspired Bravery to Reckless Foolishness, and tacks on a -5 HP penalty with no visual change.



The second work turns the gift orange, and changes the stats to -10 HP and +15 to both Attack and Move Speed.



The final step turns the fire red, and intensifies the bonuses and penalties even more. This is as far as the gift will go, further Repression works do nothing.



Once all this is done, Twee is officially moving at ludicrous speed. That's 207 Move Speed.



All this work also lets us finish getting all of Crumbling Armor's data. It's got the final Pale damage weapon in the game, though at HE-tier we've been too geared up to use it it for a while now.



Hey, Manager… We've got a strange reading here.

White ordeals, right? I'm aware.

Got a plan, boss?

I think so. Do we have the information on that freeshooter guy?



Just came in.

Perfect. We'll have everyone take a central position and push forward to see what we're dealing with.

Roger that. I'll have Bishop relay the message to the others.

So that's how you do things here…

Normally the Sephirot handle things, but since they're offline everyone else is pitching in a bit more instead.

We'll see how it works out for you.



With our Abnormality information unlocked, I have the entire facility move to Central 2.

I'm all done working with the Knight of Despair. Not entirely sure why you asked me to do that, boss, but she's really nice so it's no big deal.

It was just an idea I had.



I also clear out a few employees. On days 46+ each department only gets 5 Clerks instead of 10, making it far less resource intensive to wipe everything out. Since we have to get to level 9 today, I try to go one department at a time, right now Extraction and Records have both been emptied out.



I also make sure to send us over to the next level by starting a work with WhiteNight. This makes sure that I have as much time as possible before having to remember to work him again.



Manager, that was the Ordeal alarm. How many are we dealing with?

Hold on, I'm taking a look…



It's just one. In Extraction… a White Fixer? Did you call in Fixers on us, old man?!

What do you think?

You know anything about it, Bishop?

Not all Fixers know each other, y'know.



White Fixers specialize in White damage, they deal their damage over a wide area and add more damage over the next several seconds-if they get an attack off any Clerks in the area are toast. Given that their attack area looks like this:



That means trouble since we have Clerk's Rights Abnormalities in the building-plus running out of Clerks will mean we can't stop Queen of Hatred from breaching later. Additionally, any White-weak or low-SP Agents in the area will likely panic.

Ideally we would dogpile them and finish them off before they can get an attack off, but their counterattack ability will make this difficult-3 times over the course of fighting one they'll be rendered immune to all damage for several seconds and any attacks on them will hit the attacker instead.

The days of curbstomping weak Dawns are over. We have to pay attention now.



We clear out the Clerks in Disciplinary, and send the Agents over to intercept. Since White Fixers are slow, the team makes it there in plenty of time.



This is more or less the ideal position to engage a White Fixer from. It takes them some time to decide to attack after spotting an employee, giving us an opportunity to pile on damage.



Ooh, you smell like a cutie, too!

Smells like a cutie..?

You hear that? This thing's just like every other ordeal-they aren't real fixers!

That's good to know. I'd rather not kill a real person.

Pft. Baby.

While attacking, I make sure to have all of our Agents selected and my mouse over the elevator they came from. While doing this, I listen for a distinctive chime-this chime means an attack has been reflected, which means it's time to run away.



This is White Fixer's counterattack stance. Whenever they take it, we back off to the elevator and wait. The second they're back to their normal stance, everyone charges in again. The counterattack stance resets the countdown before the White Fixer can decide to attack, meaning that we can catch it in a loop of attack>counter>run>attack. After the third counterattack…



White Fixers aren't particularly dangerous as long as we control the pace of the fight, meaning our Dawn ends without a problem.

Well done. How did you know to handle the issue that way?

I just sort of trust my instincts. Still, it's odd that the Ordeals would be changing now… Are you sure nobody hired them?

That girl… Mizu, was it? Her nose never lies. They're the same sort of existence as all the other Ordeals.

Then why did they wait until now to show up?

In this place, at this moment, the story is rushing towards its climax. What bubbles from the well of humanity now is nothing less than-

You know what, nevermind. I've heard enough about buckets and wells for one lifetime.

You've spoken at length with Binah, then.



For the Noon, I pull everyone back to Central 2 and queue up works to get us to the next meltdown level. Like with Hokma, preparing ahead of time can save us a lot of trouble down the line.

I must say, what I've seen so far is quite unorthodox.

I'm a pretty unorthodox us, I guess.

Whether that's a good or a bad thing remains to be seen.



Hold tight, scanning the facility now.



We've got a Red Fixer in upper Disciplinary.

That's all? Let's roll!

Hold on…



We've also got a Black Fixer in Records.

Two of them at once, huh?

White Noon is two Fixers at the same time. White Dawn and White Noon both pick from a pool of Red, White, and Black fixers. Whichever one the Dawn is, the other two will show up at Noon. Because we saw White earlier, we're guaranteed to face these two here. Let's take a closer look.



Like White Fixer, Red Fixer will only do anything if it sees an employee. Unlike the White Fixer, most of its attacks are designed for close range combat. Only its beam attack can hit things outside of its room, and it's seldom used. Red Fixers are at their most dangerous when they're dying-otherwise we can just slap a Red shield on anyone engaging with them and be covered. They're the least threatening type of Fixer ordeal by a wide margin.



Black Fixers, on the other hand, are trouble. They will use their nuisance hammer attack on their own if they're left alone for too long, lowering the QCs of anything in the same hallway to 0. This ability can release a number of Abnormalities at once if it spawns somewhere like Extraction or Records, which leads to more problems. Any time that we see a Black Fixer, it needs to die immediately. The only saving grace is that Black shields are enough to reliably deal with its damage output.



We send everyone in the building its way.

These things are a cut above our usual Ordeals… It's getting a little tiring.

I thought you'd like having something new to deal with!

Just because it's new doesn't mean it's better!

Hey! Where the hell is Twee?!

The manager called her on a special assignment.



When the Black Fixer dies, it spawns a meltdown on every Abnormality in the area. These are just normal meltdowns, so I have the nearby Agents work them.



As for Twee, she's busy taking care of the Red Fixer by herself.

That tickles!

What… is that E.G.O?

It's called Paradise Lost. You like it?

I do.

Paradise Lost starts with a 0.2x Red multiplier. Additionally, the Fixer attacking ALEPH armor as a WAW is another 0.8x multiplier. On top of that, I've given Twee the Knight's blessing for an additional 0.5x multiplier. This means that Twee is only actually taking 0.08x the damage that she normally would, and with her E.G.O suit/gift combo, Twee negates any damage taken below 10.

The maximum damage of a Red Fixer is 100.

This thing can't even touch her.



I clear out Training of its Clerks next. With how Twee's engaging the Red Fixer, its death attack will mostly go outside of the facility, but it might poke a couple of Clerks here if we don't clear them out.



It turns out I didn't need to worry-the beam doesn't hit anything but Twee, who doesn't care.



Two down, two to go.

You do have a certain level of talent, I confess. Most often, this place trips us up several times as we try and learn what's needed to keep our footing.

Must be nice to have the place in competent hands, huh?

I wouldn't go that far yet.



Ahh, you're here because I remind you of your friend, sir?

With the Noon done, we've got some time to burn before the Dusk. I mostly use it to farm boxes on our new Abnormalities.



And you've managed to gather all the equipment already?

It's tradition. Gear means power, power means my agents don't die.

Ah yes… you don't let them die too often. It's only Ishmael, if I remember?

In my defense, I didn't know I could rewind things back then.

I'm in no position to judge. I've watched them all die, time and time again. Why, there was one agent who I would send to his death almost daily.

I always wondered why Hokma just let that happen.

I simply payed the extra LOB for the customization options and called him up time and again. With the same face, same voice, same memories and same name… who could ever say they were different people in the first place?



That's really kind of creepy.

The way I see it, if we're willing to do it to ourselves it should be no issue to do to others. This project is one that we must all be willing to die for. If our lives can save those of all humanity… what purpose is there in hesitating?

Even if it kills us a couple times, eh?

Oh, it's far more than a couple, my friend… But yes.



...Kit, what are you doing?

Making marshmallows.

With my hair?

It's on fire, so I figured why not.

It's not actually hot.

...it isn't?

Nope.

…what a ripoff!



I must say, I really appreciate that you're not like the other suppressions.

How's that?

You're not doing anything. It's just another day, and not even a bad one.

Oh, yes… Well, like I said. Today is simply about proving you can stand in this place at all. I've questions of my own, things I could never hope to answer. But I'm glad that all of this has offered some comfort. After all, this is…

A respite… right.

Mm. It seems we're on much the same wavelength.



To prepare for the White Dusk, I split the facility into thirds. Half of the Middle+Lower Layers go into this elevator...



The other half go here…



And the Upper Layer Agents go over here, where I assign all of my works from. Tylana stays on her own, since she shouldn't ever be out of WhiteNight's cell for long. I also put Tenebrais in an elevator on her own to deal with all of the works I'm queuing up. Since she's the last unblessed Agent in Disciplinary, it's guaranteed that Parasite Tree will try calling her.



Which lets me ensure that she doesn't go anywhere.



When the White Dusk starts we pause and have a peek around.



The Black Fixer is in Extraction, and I send the team in the Disciplinary elevator after it.



Red's in Records, and I ignore it for now. There's nothing there for it to attack.



White Fixer is in Information, and I decide to keep an eye on it for now. The upper layer is a bit heavy on White damage, and I don't want to risk failing to force out its counter and triggering an attack. I also notice that I forgot to remove any Clerks last meltdown level. That's my one mistake for the day, if I forget again then Queen of Hatred will be making our lives difficult.



Lastly, we have a new threat to deal with: This incredibly dapper looking fellow. Let's talk about him for a moment.



The Pale Fixer is the last of the four Fixers, and only shows up for the White Dusk. Because they deal Pale damage they're a dangerous threat already, but on top of that they will also teleport onto our agents if left alone for too long. This means we need to take the fight to them, since dropping on top of our team while they're in the middle of fighting another Fixer can make things chaotic in a jiffy.

More than anything, White Dusk is about target prioritization. In order, I generally aim for Black > Pale > White=Red. Since neither White nor Red can do much without employees to bully, which one I go for first depends on where they are in the facility. In this case, the team in the Welfare elevator is sent after the Pale Fixer.



Meanwhile Team 1 runs into the Black Fixer. It takes a little longer than having the full facility jump him, but the Fixer goes down without an issue.



I set the Extraction team Agents to work on the three breaching Abnormalities here. The book meltdown will cost us 35 energy, but that's nothing at this point-we'll have more than enough to finish the day regardless.



This sword's no good against it!

My staff, either!

It doesn't like White damage. Leave it to us.

Team 2 engages with the Pale Fixer, and I use a number of Pale shields to tank his attacks-since we have people in melee with 1.5x or 2x Pale weaknesses, I refresh them every time it attacks just to be safe. I'd rather have Agents than ammo.



When killed, the Fixer's head is blown off by their briefcase. Make sure not to be standing nearby when this happens, as 50-70 Pale damage is more than WhiteNight's ring deals.

With the Pale and Black Fixers down, the fight becomes much less of a problem. I decide to just have Twee take care of the other two while the rest of the facility hangs out on the other end.



Hey, nice beam! But just wait 'til I show you my totally awesome scythe attack!

Given that neither of them can scratch her, it goes exactly as you'd expect.



First the Red Fixer falls...



And here's a shot of White Fixer's weapon unleashing its final attack after their death.



HAH! That wasn't so hard, either!

...Hmm.

What, nothing to say?

I simply haven't felt so... nostalgic... looking at myself for some time. You truly believe that you can be the one to succeed, don't you?

I have to be. I gave my word.

We all promised Carmen the same thing, and in the end our word alone proved not to be enough. There were still too many questions left that we found unanswerable.



Like why it's so satisfying to watch Punishing Bird peck an agent?

...No. Not like that at all.



Hey, Manager. We're a step from Midnight. If there's anything left to do, get it done.

Roger that.



To prepare for White Midnight, I throw everyone into my favorite elevator aside Tylana-who is still working with WhiteNight like she has been all day.



Oh hi, Punishing Bird! Are you here to help with the suppression?

Please let this be a normal Midnight.

Today? No way.



First an Arbiter, now a Claw?! Wait-does that mean?!



Worry not. It's a being born of cogito like all the others. The Head still blind to our plan.

Phew. I did not want to deal with them.

Given the last time they interfered? I understand entirely.



The Claw is our boss fight for the day, and it's got far fewer HP than any of the other Midnight Ordeals. It wanders the facility performing normal attacks until it decides to inject one of its syringes, activating a special attack based upon which one it chooses.

Tenebrais, Twee, engage.

On it!



The Claw can't hurt Twee, and Tenebrais can easily soak up any attack it does until it goes for its first syringe-injecting the green fluid on the back of its head. I grab the rest of the facility and order them all to attack, since green is one of the attacks where we can stun it.



The green injection has The Claw attempt to heal, but dealing 200 damage before the animation ends will stun him for 30 seconds. If we want to get out of here without losing anyone, that's an important timeframe.



It looks like a Claw… but it smells like a cutie! It's a cutie Claw!!

Save it! We're backing off, now!

Huh? Why?

Hell if I know. Ask Seyser's hair.

It's just been going harder as we've been attacking, is all..!

At the 50% mark, I back off. Our facility isn't quite at the point where we can down The Claw in a single stun period, and if it recovers at a sliver of health then it will immediately trigger its counterattack. I know this because it happened in the YouTube version of the fight. The results were...



Retry count: 17

...let's go with "less than ideal." There's a second way of dealing with The Claw that involves keeping Agents spread out and ready to go into a cell once we trigger its 25% HP attack in order to dodge it entirely, but I generally find that to be slower, more vulnerable to orange injections, and less satisfying than just beating the crap out of the thing with a giant deathball.



Anyways, now we just have to wait for The Claw to get back up.



When it does it immediately opts to use the orange injection, the one it can't be stunned out of. Having moved the facility out of the way already, we don't have anything to worry about.



A moment after the injection, The Claw charges forward for the end of the level he's currently on.



In this case, that's the elevator in upper Disciplinary. I have Twee and Tenebrais re-engage.



It's definitely trying to hurt me, but I don't think it's working.

That suit of yours is ridiculous, I swear.

It really is quite good.

It's the only reason I haven't fired WhiteNight into the sun, to be honest.

A moment later I have them disengage so I can wait for the next syringe, but it turns out not to matter…



Because it tries to use the blue injection right next to my still-in-transit facility.

The blue injection puts circles on 8 random Agents. They can remove them by entering any cell to start a work with any Abnormality, but after a few moments it will teleport to the marked agents and stab them for Black damage. While charging this attack it actually pulls up a unique map of the facility, which I did not actually see in any of my footage. Why?



Because we can stun The Claw during the blue injection. This means our facility blazes through the rest of its HP without any problems.



Which immediately ends the day. For the record, The Claw's ending quote is: "No one dares to stand against them. As long as they exist, the tale of the Nest will never reach its close." We will never see it in this playthrough.

Overall, Day 46 serves primarily as an introduction to the White ordeals, and once we've learned how to handle each of them it's not particularly hard. The most difficult part is trying to keep from knocking the Claw below 25% until we're ready to kill it in the same stun phase, and we only needed to do that because our damage is ~3/5ths of what it otherwise could be.

Hah! Nice job team. I knew we could do it. So, do I qualify?

Yes, I believe so. I trust you already know what comes next?

Two more Abnormalities, right?

Correct. Two more Abnormalities.

Music: never frozen bottom flows


...Y'know what? Sure. Why the hell not?

Welcome aboard, -44. Please stop showing up in my Abnormality options now.

As for the other one…



After thinking about this trio for a moment, I remembered that -awesome! is a ZAYIN which is relatively easy to work with and has simple rules to remember. It doesn't produce much energy, but it doesn't really need to. It is, after all, -awesome!.

Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: At least one A throws a mild hissyfit.

New Guidelines

Crumbling Armor
Der Freischütz

New Gear


Requirements: Justice 2


Requirements: Temperance 2


Requirements: Temperance 3
*Not affected by Attack Speed
*Will harm allies


Requirements: Fortitude 3, Justice 3

New Story

Crumbling Armor
Der Freischütz

Bonus

VIDEO: Day 46