Part 55: Day 26 - Gameplay

Day 26: Gameplay

Music: neutral 1


One more thing, manager: When I woke up this morning I was feeling particularly inspired. I made a couple of changes in our systems and employee training regimens, raising efficiency by at least 12%.

Holy hell, Malkuth. This is really useful. Good work.

Thank you, manager!

First things first, Suppressing Malkuth gives us some new upgrades. Firstly, if you remember the Mechanics Talk about LOB gains, we now have the better formula mentioned there. This will give us a not-insignificant amount of bonus LOB every day to use later on. Secondly, the base speeds of all our Agents have increased from 40 to 45, the equivalent of 12.5 points of Move Speed for everyone. Finally, meltdowns will no longer spawn in the Control Team. Gone are the days where 1.76 MHz's static covers everything because I forgot it was melting down-it simply cannot anymore. This also removes the 4 Abnormalities in Control from the total pool of Abnormalities which can meltdown, meaning fewer will spawn as well-though with only one department immune to them we won't see the effect until we hit higher meltdown levels.



Since today ended in a 6, it's also a Memory Repository day. This is important because…




We cannot do Core Suppressions on a Memory Repository day. (This is actually why I didn't put any in the story update. ) All we have to worry about today is a single new Abnormality.





Let’s make the best of today as always~



You guys had better not screw up!

Just don't do anything dangerous.

Now that we're off emergency detail, let's see… Gaia, it looks like it's your turn with the ol' Long Bird again.

I'll do my best, ma'am!

And Mizu…

THERE'S A DISTURBANCE IN THE FACILITY!

What?

I must go. A cutie needs me.





Our new Abnormality is some sort of creepy mushroom. Once you notice that the base is a bunch of screaming faces, you can never unsee it. Sorry.



Hello, ma'am! Fine day we're-

Not now! Cutie!



Cuuuuuuuutiiiiiiiiiie!!

I'm very flattered, but-

Not now! There's a new cutie!

...Ah. You mean the Abnormality.



Talow! I'm here for the cutie!

Oh, hey Mizu. Twee just went inside.

_...what?



Finally, a chance to put those techniques I learned from watching Mizu to work.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!



Talow, I'm back-oh, Hi Mizu!

Shh. Shh shh. Come here. We speak.

Sure. Did you want to know how to work with the mushroom?

I know how to treat cuties. No. I just want to say that if you ever, ever steal my spot again, I will have words. With your face. Using my fists. As words.

Uhm… okay?

Okie-dokie. I'm gonna go say hi to the new cutie now~~



That was scary..!

She certainly has her moments.



It's okay everyone! The cutie has decided it likes me best after all. Also it likes Attachment work, but it gets you all sporey so you should probably clean up after.

So you're headed off to the shower?

Heeeck naw! I said you should clean up. I'm gonna savor it.

Oh, alright! I'll call Central and work something out.



Our new Abnormality, Giant Mushroom Chunk, is a complicated thing. The first thing to know about it is that every time we work with it, it increments a secret counter on our agents by +0.2. If it ever hits 1, bad stuff happens at the end of the work. Working with another Abnormality gives that agent a -0.2, so it's necessary to swap back and forth should we be working with the Chonk.





We'll be having Twee and Talow trade out working the Chonk and working with Yin or Nothing There today, in order to prevent incrementing that counter. Meanwhile, Boksi is preparing Firebird to breach since we need to suppress it two more times at some point.



Let's clean this room up. I definitely don't want a repeat of you.

The second arbitrary rule of the Chonk: If we go 3 works without doing an Insight work, its QC lowers by 1. This means that Talow is going to be solely on cleanup duty today, since his stats are maxed and we don't need to train him any further right now.



Alright everyone. It's time to line up and get ready for the Firebird again.

Being surrounded by my admirers never gets any less awkward.

Which admirers are those, exactly..?





Immediately, things go wrong: The Firebird is charging to the right in this shot, and this is disastrous. We don't have a room to the right of this hallway, so if I were to engage it here and it were to use its charge attack again, we wouldn't be able to dodge.

All units, fall back!



We try engaging it in the main room once it enters, but…



What's it doing?

It looks like it's returning to its cell.

Then let's suppress it before it can get back in.

You newbie! That's not how it works at all! Once an Abnormality decides to return home, the ability to suppress it is deactivated. It prevents pointless deaths and injuries!

But… the feather…

There's always next time, manager.

Firebird has a time limit, and if we don't suppress it in time it decides to return home. We'll have to try again in a bit.



Well, at least things are moving smoothly.

It is a marked improvement to be able to properly contact you, manager.

At any rate, we should try Firebird again.



That's the plan.

I'm sure you can do it, sir.



This time, it flies in the right direction and the fight plays out exactly like it did the previous three times on day 24.



Good job, sirs! Um… but why are we walking away from it?

Because it's an explosion. You always walk slowly and purposely away from an explosion.

You… do, sir?

Hmmmm… sounds pretty coool, come to thiink of it…

Exactly.

Don't worry, I've got the feather right here ready to put into storage.



Orders from the top, everyone! We've been told to stay on standby for any Ordeals, but other than that we've got time off. Omni, be ready in case Blue Star melts down again.

Ma'am!

In that case, I'll be back in a bit. Sound good?

Alright. Take all the time you need.

Oh, can I come too?

Actually, I need you to stay on hand up here in case an ordeal shows up.

Roger that, sir!



Angela… Punishing Bird is out.

It is, Manager.

Why is Hod not chiming in like she always does?

Rather than monitoring the situation, she's in the middle of a training class for one of our groups of clerks.

I see. Well, we'll let it do as it likes for now.

So here's something I found out while recording this episode: If a Sephirah is ready for its core suppression, that Sephirah actually stops chiming in during breaches (and presumably deaths/panics as well) in their department. Since Hod and Yesod have the suppression button now, they're not talking until we fix them.



Talow.

Do all fixers insist on appearing behind someone without warning, or is that just a you thing?

I think we can both say that I'll definitely survive. That thing that was supposed to kill me didn't. Malkuth's fine, too.

Oh, that? That's not what was supposed to kill you.

Then what was that?

Don't know. It's new to me.

...you're kidding.

Oh, it's Bishop. Not every day you see someone from Control bother to come down here. I was just making a midday cup of coffee. Want some?

Yes, thanks very much. _{This isn't over.}

It never is with you.



Crimson Dawn.





Crimson D'oh! One of them let Forsaken Murderer out, but on the upside I can show off that Malkuth's robot form persists even in day-to-day talks. She even has new lines for everything to reflect the change in her outlook.



_{Just keep walking. Don't look down. Don't think about it.}

Meanwhile I lose a bunch of Clerks to an exploding clown. No big deal, Clerks don't count.



Crimson (finally) Done.



Around now we finally finish unlocking our new Abnormality's information, alongside its true name-Little Prince. The contamination rule and the Insight rule are the only major twists to this thing, but since it can and will instantly kill Agents if they're not followed, they make it difficult to work with. It's still worth farming for its gear, particularly that spear. Oh yes... We want that spear.



Now that that bird's been basically beaten back, Boksi's breaktime's bound to be a blast.



How long did you spend on that sentence instead of literally anything useful?

Oh come off it, it's not my fault you don't understand the cunning wit of someone who went to an actual school.

You're right. I prefer slapstick. Wanna see?

...no, I don't think I do.



Crimson Noon.



Crimson None. Seriously, the only interesting thing that happened was the last clown blowing up on the Clerk in the background behind the banner, who survived because of Red bullets.



My dude, I heard an explosion! Are you okay?

Better than that guy.

...Fair enough!



Manager, the energy has been gathered and we are prepared to end the day at any time.

We'll get to it eventually. There's still that mushroom's gear to get.



Just a little more until…

X, we're receiving an urgent page from Medea in the Training team.

Seriously? Okay, patch it through.



Manager, we have an emergency!

What broke out this time?

No, manager, it's Hod. Tell him what you told me, Gamma28.

We were in the middle of training, and she started acting really weird, lashing out at everyone for no reason! Then she started talking to herself and went offline! How are we supposed to work like this, manager?!

You're kidding me.

It would be best to check the security footage to confirm what transpired.

Yeah. You don't suppose…

I fear that is exactly the case. I know that we still have E.G.O suits to extract from the latest Abnormality, however I believe it would be best to end things here, and investigate the problem further.

Great. Yeah. Alright. Let's see what the problem is. Everyone, clear out!



Huh. This feels early.

There's been an incident.

So more work for us, huh..?

Not that kind of incident. Yet.

All I needed to hear.

Hey, now, no leaving 'til we're all packed up here kiddo.

Fine…



I'll handle the cleanup. You just do what you need to do, manager~

Thanks.

Congratulations go out to Twee and Mr.Blond for joining the maxout club with everyone else. We're hitting the point where I almost want to put together a spreadsheet to see who's maxed what so I can plan training ahead of time.

Music: never frozen bottom flows


F-01-18: Over time, her unbearable sorrow grew into a mournful obsession, covered in countless, lengthy hairs.
O-04-100: The more blood it has, the more beautiful it is.
T-02-71: Tell the kid today's treat is going to be grape-flavored candy. It's his favorite.

A meh-pick, to be honest. -18 is a TETH Abnormality which gives us a ranged White damage weapon, which are important for dealing with certain types of panics. However, she's not a particularly good training Abnormality, offers no gift, and is generally 'meh' overall. She's also the only instance of a jumpscare in the game-mild though she may be. We'll pass. Then there's -100, another TETH and one whose QC drops on good results. Its gear looks really neat, but dealing with it either causes deaths or is slow, and we can't really afford 'slow' right now, particularly for equipment that's been outdated for over 10 days. That leaves -71 by default which is… Meh! A WAW Abnormality, it has the lowest damage weapon in its class, and its suit is basically a slightly worse version of Hornet, though it does give us 3 copies of it instead of 2. It's not even a particularly great trainer, dealing White damage but having Insight as its only bad work type.



Still, I guess we'll take it.

Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: We find out what the hell happened in Training.

New Guidelines

The Little Prince

New Gear


Requirements: Level 2, Temperance 2


Requirements: Level 2, Prudence 2

New Story

The Little Prince (Part 1)
The Little Prince (Part 2)
The Little Prince (Part 3)
The Little Prince (Part 4)