Part 66: Day 30 - Gameplay

Day 30: Gameplay

Music: neutral 4


Manager, some news: I've decided to take advantage of some... creative accounting to conveniently allow us to ration slightly more Positive Enkephalin to the gathering of information and gear than we could previously.

Oh? I thought you were all about following the proper protocol.

So long as it helps our people get the things they need to survive, I'm behind it from here forward. As the head of the Information Team, so long as the i's and t's appear to be in order nobody can say a thing otherwise.

No arguments from me.

Yesod's bonus is arguably the weakest one so far, but it's still far from worthless-in practice our new free energy box for every 4 earned means prices have been cut to ~80% of what they originally were. This makes unlocking information much less of a pain, particularly for the highly expensive ALEPH Abnormalities.



Hey, I got the last piece of research all done for you.

Thanks for getting this done so fast.

Well, less time to clean up bodies means more time to handle research.

I mentioned this before, but as a reminder: This research is normally bugged and does not do anything. I've gone ahead and put in a mod that fixes this, and now our HP/SP healing bullets will be fixing 40 damage a shot instead of 25. Ideally we will still never be using these.




Okay, last chance-anyone else feel like going crazy on me? Tiphereths? Chesed?

I'm good~

Don't be stupid, manager.

Angela?

I shall not be 'going crazy' today, if that is your concern. There is absolutely nothing to be dealt with today, aside from your usual duties and the single mission you have been provided with.

Okay! Let's… Let's have ourselves a normal day.

DAY 30 CHALLENGE: A NORMAL DAY

Rules: Complete Chesed's "For the Aftermath 4" mission. Fully unlock all Abnormality research. Don't do anything insane.

...I just did three Suppressions in a row on speedrun mode, I maintain that at this point doing things normally is a challenge.





Let’s make the best of today as always~



Orders from the top, everyone! Omni, Chinely, today you two are going to be doing some final polishing on your skillsets. Omni, report to Training to work Attachment with the Knight of Despair. Chinely, you'll be with Blue Star to maximize your Prudence.

Yes ma'am!

Got anything for me?

You'll be taking care of any Ordeals that show up.

Got it, boss.



It's time. Fat Sam, you're… Where is Fat Sam?

Hiding right behind me, boss.

You promised you wouldn't tell!

No, I just said you could hide behind me.

He did say that.

We don't have time for this, Sam. Laetitia. Instinct work. Now.

Er… yes sir.



Let's all do our best today! Omni's going to be joining us today, so Medea I need you to work with the Knight before he gets here.

Can do. As for you two, Netzach's new breakthrough has given us a novel idea for how to keep Punishing Bird contained to as small an area as possible. We'll be trying it today.

Oooo, a new meethod..? I can't waait..!

I think I can see where this is going.



Let's get to it, I guess… Hm.

Something the matter, boss?

Looks like we don't have anything to do.

I'm hearing breaktime.

Yeah... that works. Have a good breaktime, everyone.



Evil Kit, you're with the All-Around helper for Instinct training. Gaia, Instinct with the Judgment Bird. You guys had better not screw up!

...hey, where is Evil Kit, anyways?

Over here, over here. I just got back from doing nothing at all of note! Muahahaha!

Ooo...kay then.

If an Agent's Pale resistance is decent, then Judgment Bird can actually make for an effective Instinct trainer. Its rates are pretty good, and since it deals damage as a % of max HP, it's easy to hit those good damage modifiers. It's a shame that good Pale resistance is limited to only a few suits in the game.



Boksi, you'll be working with Nothing There to power up your Temperance. Think you can do that?

Of course! Prepare to be awed by my unbridled Nothing There-working prowess.

Two LOB says we have to save his ass.

Alright, why not? You're on.

...Phew. It's just assigning a basic workflow, but it's a lot more draining than it used to be.

You could always just focus on the newest departments. The Uppers can be ignored at this point.

Tempting, but no. I can't neglect our agents' growth.

This is around the point where the temptation gets really strong to start playing sloppy, neglect our training, and focus on working high-powered Abnormalities with high-powered Agents to speed through the day ASAP. Do not do this. Lobotomy Corporation is the sort of game that rewards diligence and thoroughness, and we don't want to wind up in endgame with anything less than a facility full of the best Agents we can field, since even Hod-boosted newbies are basically a liability come endgame.

But enough of that, we have new Abnormalities to look at!



It's… some kind of creepy shark, alright.

It certainly is some form of shark.

Mizu's notes say that licking it is, "good for taking a mini-vacation."

I don't want to know how she knows that.

The good news is that we've been consistently working both our unknown Abnormalities during the Core Suppressions we've been doing, so we have enough PE boxes to unlock all their data immediately should we want to. So we do that.



Say hello to The Dreaming Current! It's a White damage Abnormality which prefers Instinct and Attachment-which means it's terrible for damage optimization. It's decent at Repression, however, which makes it a decent Justice trainer in a pinch-and it basically never breaches. This is a good thing, since if it ever does breach it's the second-fastest thing in the entire game. Just never let it out, and everything will be fine.



The second one is… a blur?

Not precisely. It is an entity which cannot be normally seen at all, but is nevertheless there. Your monitor has been upgraded with the technology necessary to project its form in a manner which you can comprehend.

Mizu's notes on this one say "much easier to beat up than the radio, but it likes when someone puts out things for it to roll in instead."

It's a truly mysterious being.



This one is named Dimensional Refraction Variant, or DRV for short. Another Abnormality which deals White damage in containment, this one actually does like Insight work, making it a very useful Prudence trainer. The only caveat is that Agents need to have high Temperance to work on it-any work over 40 seconds lowers its QC by one, and when it breaches… Well, we'll discuss its breach later. We'll see it soon enough, after all.

While we're here, we also have enough boxes on Little Prince to buy its last two suits, so we do that as well. That just leaves one more Abnormality to look at.



A storage room?

A bunker of some sort, manager.

Okay, what do the notes say?

There aren't any notes. She doesn't seem to care about tool Abnormalities at all.

Ahh… Well… let's send her in.



This tool is a channeling-type tool, which means one of our Agents will sit in here until we tell them to leave.

...this is boring. I'm bored.



I'mma go see if any of the cuties need me.

...did she just…

She did, sir.

I'll… page her back in.



In total, we'll need to keep an Agent sitting in there for 3 minutes to unlock all of the data-this is quite reasonable, given that we have 7 minutes to play around with.



About 18 seconds later, we get the name to show up: Shelter from the 27th of March.

...yep. Still boring.

We need to keep having Mizu duck in and out within 30 seconds, making actually farming the information a little bit more complicated than some other Abnormalities. It's vitally important that we do this, unless we want to be forced to retry the day.



If I were thinking, I'd have cleared out the Agent selection in the upper-right so we could see the timer properly, but at this point we're at 5:07 left and we're less than a quarter of the way done.

Hm. We need to pick up the pace a bit.

Having trouble?

Not exactly.

Remember, the Dawn is worth 10% of our total as well, and takes little time-we're actually doing pretty okay on energy right now. We just need to focus on the Shelter, which we'll do while working on everything else.



Thank you, Hod. I was actually starting to miss that.

Like Malkuth, Hod also gets new lines for everything, from escapes to deaths to team wipes now that she's revealed her true form. This is the case with every Sephirot, so I'll probably include all the different lines as a bonus update after we finish dealing with all the Core Suppressions.



I've taken the liberty of arranging Talow and Kaori to intercept the Punishing Bird, manager. No matter where it goes, it'll have to run into one of them.

Very nice. Thank you, Hod.

With Netzach healing us in corridors, we can now indefinitely keep people stationed nearby for the bird to pick on before going back home. We could also have just one Agent sit in the corridor, but since Agents walk back and forth in corridors it can take a bit longer for the bird to finish with them vs attacking an Agent in an elevator.



This is much better… I really prefer having a real live cutie in the room, you know?

When did she-

She wanted to work with an Abnormality, so she did. No point getting worked up over every little thing our agents do, sir.



Green Dawn spawns not long after. We're about halfway through our timer, and have 342/800 energy. Defeating the Dawn will give us 10% of our goal, putting us at 422. Our next meltdown is a Crimson Noon, which will be worth another 15% if we defeat it, giving us 542/800 accounted for overall. We're making excellent time.



Making a note for later: assigning agents out to intercept Punishing Bird for the day makes fighting these things take a lot longer.

Fighting alone would do that. Do you want me to call for backup?

Don't bother-it's just a dawn, after all.



The entire affair lasts about 20 seconds total. It would be hard to overstate just how far we are beyond Dawn Ordeals-I might start skipping over them on longer days. In the meanwhile, we've been slowly working towards our goal with the Shelter-we're over 2 minutes of the 3 we need now.



...wait, what's that last one?



Well, I'll be. Mizu's short attention span may well have just saved everyone's lives.

What a nice outcome for our agents.

This is the downside to Shelter, and it is a big one. Every 30 seconds it causes some other Abnormality to do its Bad Stuff-this could be anything from Blue Star popping out of containment to say hi, to 1.76 MHz staticing up the facility, to Punishing Bird beating on Talow for the hundredth time today. One of the most common mistakes managers of any skill level make is sending someone to deal with a meltdown on this Abnormality, and then forgetting about it until the facility is filled with WAW and ALEPH tier threats wreaking havoc on everything.

This is usually followed by a retry.



We put SeyserKoze to work on finishing off the observation. We need to log 55 more seconds with the Shelter, and we have 3 minutes and change to do it with-plenty of time.



Hey, manager?

Talk to me, Bishop.

This is just a thought, but… you haven't called in the past few days. Everything okay?

Oh, yeah. I'm just busy piecing everything together bit by bit. You don't have to worry.

If you say so, boss. Did you figure out anything juicy?

Nothing I can tell an employee, sadly. No big, it's all old news anyways.

Is it related to those events we've been having?

Not exactly. Like I said, nothing I can tell an employee.

...Alright. Talk to you later, manager.



Now, can you turn into my grangran? No, not like that. She's got a more dour look. There you go. Now give her a pointier nose. Pointier. Less pointy. Perfect. You're a pretty good whatever-you-are, aren't you?

...This only counts as mildly creepy, I guess.

So long as they're making energy, I think it's just fine.

Fair enough-







But I don't knoow where your friends aare…



You smell theem..? Ooh, you mean the one in Centraal…? I guess I know thaat one… but not any otheers…





Manager, the research is finished. That is all of it.

Perfect. Do we have time to get all the gear together?



Less than two minutes remain on Chesed's deadline, and the Crimson Noon has just appeared. We will need to ensure that our energy goals are met first and foremost.

You're right. Where is it?

My clerks are sustaining losses, manager.

Information it is. I'll send Safety over to handle it.



Only 1:48 left to go, but as soon as we suppress this Noon we'll gain 120 energy and be just over our threshold.

We've got this, you guys run away.

We can't! You're our heroes!

Manager…

Right, right. I'll… Red bullet the one taking the hits, at least.

You know what the best part about suppressing Crimson Ordeals is? They're always smiling like good boys and girls do!!



Suppression took 17 seconds. Clown split has been confirmed, 1:31 remaining.

I have eyes on one in training!

Get Medea on it, where are the others?



One in upper Central! Sending the team to suppress it now, naturally.

Lower as well. Boksi's already in the room to handle it.



Suffer you drat Ordeal! Grovel on the floor before me! Muahahahaha!!!

I appreciate the enthusiasm, but this is serious! We're in a hurry!

I just got out of training with Judgment Bird, and now this… well, duty calls!

One minute and 17 seconds remain.

Come on…



We have done it. Congratulations, X.

Alright. We should have just enough time for one last round of work. Let's knock that out and then call it a day.

I'll get my agents right on it, manager.



Look… Since this is the last work for the day, I just wanted to thank you. For everything. I've learned so much from you-how to stand, how to talk, how to constantly lament a past darkness that's overtaken my entire soul, I feel like this day has progressed my own development forward by leaps and bounds. I really appreciate it, Knight of Despair.



Well, I hope you had a nice easy day while I did all the work the department was assigned, Tenebrais.

Hey, you had to stop having me carry your sorry ass eventually. I'm outta here come tomorrow, mosshead.

You're… what? I can't have heard that right.

I'm outta here. New department's opening up, and someone's gotta run it. I made a bit of an impression during the interview yesterday.


I'd say it's been real, but it's only been real annoying.

Yes, I won't miss a ruffian like you one bit either. It'll be nice to be able to breathe through my nose again.

Please. You've always been a mouthbreathing loser, mosshead.

Hnhn… Oh, I won't miss you.

Same. Don't die before I can kill you.

I won't be dying at all.

It must be nice to have such good friends.

I… really don't think that's friendship, Tiphereth.



Work's done.

That's the last one. Angela, where are we at?

Three seconds remain.

Not enough time for any more works. The gear?




We have managed to manufacture everything except for The Dreaming Current's weapon.

Good enough. We'll have to make it tomorrow.

This isn't a very big loss-Ecstasy is easily the worst WAW weapon. We can do without it for one extra day.



That was a quiet day. Let's have some more like it in the future, hm?

Chinely, Boksi, and Fat Sam have joined the maxout club.



Finally, since the Bird has not yet been placed, we do not select a new Abnormality today. This is because the game remembers the Abnormality we've already chosen, and it stays in storage until it's properly placed. This also could have happened when opening Safety and Training, but the way things worked out meant that we placed each Abnormality as we got it. Things simply advance to day 31.

Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: Gebura.

New Guidelines

The Dreaming Current
Dimensional Refraction Variant

New Gear


Requirements: Prudence 3


Requirements: Level 2, Temperance 2

New Story

The Dreaming Current
Dimensional Refraction Variant
Shelter from the 27th of March