Part 71: Day 32 - Gameplay

Day 32: Gameplay

Music: neutral 2



Nothing unusual here. The newbies are staying in Training for that sweet 10% bonus.

Here's hoping today is quieter than yesterday.

It'd be hard to be much louder. Maybe if the bees got out on top of everything.

Don't worry, that probably won't happen.

Excuse me if I don't feel reassured.

Manager, try to remember to extract The Dreaming Current's weapons today.

The bird needs to give up its weapon too, while we're at it.

No worries-I'll make sure we get geared up for later. Let's get the ball rolling.





Time to kick some ass.



…

<sub>The captain's taking a meaningful, reflective pause. I wonder what thoughts are going through his head… what developments this will reveal about his inner character. I'll bet he's having a flashback right now.

You think so? It looks more like one of those imagination pauses to me. Or maybe he's daydreaming about the Sephirah.

Ah, that's gotta be it. Daydreaming.</sub>

Orders from the top, everyone! You've been paged down to Training today, to help out with suppressions.

Huh? Ah, sure. Are you going to be okay by yourself?

Don't worry about it! I'm still the best of the Sephirot at getting my work done.



Let's all do our best today!

I hope you three are ready for another busy day! Robin, Big Bird. Morgana, you'll be in Welfare with the Refraction Variant this time. And Chiral? You're going to be doing something a little scary, okay?

Does it pay extra?

No. No it does not.

I'd like to decline, then?

Denied!





Our new Abnormality is a tree, with what looks like a tiny face in the middle.

This is the part where I pretend to ask for volunteers.

You noticed that she left already, huh?

Course I noticed. An eye for details can mean the difference between life and death.

I figure that if you're worrying about details you just need to punch harder.

That's why you're still wet behind the ears.



A planty cutie that wants to talk..? Well, okay. I'm 22, single, and my hobbies include...

You wanna go a round?

Save it for the Abnormalities. We aren't in the same league.

I got put here for punching a hole in a wall.

I remember it being more of a dent than a hole.



Unlimited… POWER…!

When Mizu's work is completed, the mysterious tree blesses her. This blessing supposedly restores SP and increases her Work Success rate, but nothing's been found in the code for it so it seems to be bugged. It also causes a change in the Abnormality itself.



The tree grows a little glowing bud.



World Tree, huh? Angela, calculate the probability that that orb is a warning.

After running a number of simulations and creating various hypotheses, I would rate the probability at 50%. It either is or is not a threat.

...Thank you for exactly nothing, Angela. Netzach?

I wouldn't trust anything that changes in this place.

Yeah, we're on the same page. We'll continue the work, but make sure to be careful… Meanwhile, we'll have Robin resume work with the-



Hold that thought, everyone. Hod, I should already have Control in position to intercept alongside Medea-you put Chiral to work on that project I gave them, right?

Oh, um, yes sir!



So my dangerous job is just working with you? You're no Laetitia, but you're still just a HE. We'll get along fine.



World Tree has a couple of interesting quirks. The most readily apparent is this one-as works are completed while World Tree is not actively being worked with, it will slowly become more overgrown. If ever we complete five works with other Abnormalities without working it, it will become completely overgrown and its QC will drop to 0. It's very demanding, but we can work with it.



Sending Mizu to work with it cleared it up. That leaf over her head is showing that she's blessed.



Perfect. Team, go ahead and intercept.



I'll take the hits. Pile on!

Got it!

What about the bird?

Could you put off hitting us for about… two seconds? Please?



Well, it was worth asking.



It's about as much of a curbstomp as we'd expect four agents decked out in WAW gear to provide.

Great job! Now just do that four more times and we're clear.

Maybe you are pretty good at this.

That's what I've been saying.



Oh hey, they've got you with Helper today?

They certainly do. My job is to turn it so that every time it tries to move it runs right into a wall! Muahahaha!

Ahh, they're teaching you how Justice works then?

...is that what they're doing? It just sounded like a good time to me!



Manager, Yang is showing a meltdown.

Have someone get the pendant and put it right back. No pauses.

Yes, sir.



Wow, Zaida. Good job saving the entire facility just now. That definitely deserves the rest of the day off. Thanks, I think I'll take you up on that.



Alright, let's get on-

It's done.

Wha?



We're already done.

There was even time for Omni and Chinely to do their... "victory poses."

It's a shame you missed them, sir! We practiced really hard.

Well… keep up the good work.

We will, manager.



Wait-you meant right now?

Obviously.

It's no problem, we've got this handled.



With our Scarecrow bullying project 3/5ths of the way done, we also unlock the full information on our newest Abnormality. Its real name is Parasite Tree, and it is very touchy. How touchy? We'll get to that as soon as I stop being insanely lucky.



Crimson Dawn.



Manager, there's a Dawn up here at One Sin. Can you dispatch someone?

I'll have Bishop go.

Bishop's not going to be fast enough to kill this thing, so we get a good opportunity to see exactly what it does to an Abnormality's PE boxes when its shenanigans are successful. Note that we have 915 banked on One Sin.



And now we have 641. A full 30% of our boxes, gone.



Anyways, beating the Dawn pushes us over the halfway mark. Not bad so far!

Don't forget to suppress two more HEs before we call it a day.

What, the Ordeals didn't count?

Those things? They don't even qualify as a warmup.

So picky…

Back to work, everyone.

Yeah... what she said.



Hey newbie. You learned anything about that Bird yet?

I've determined a number of things-for one, despite its demeanor and the manner in which it acts when breaching it seems to like a large amount of birdseed and pats.

Sounds like you've been doing Instinct work.

Well, yes. I already perfected my Attachment approach yesterday-it was in the documents I handed over at the end of the day?

Those things? I just pass 'em off to Yesod's bunch of nerds without even reading them.



Hmm… So Big Biird likes talking about saafety protocools… and really diislikes it when people lie about being an aalien…

It doesn't say that.

Oh… dooesn't it..? How would yoou know..?

I read all the docs as they come in. Nice shot, kiddo. Keep it up.

It was worth a tryy…



This is the fourth time.

Should just be one more, and then we'll be all set for the day.

It's certainly been action packed. Can't wait for a good break.

Manager! Something's going on with that new tree. Look into it.

Huh?



I feel… leafy.

What the hell just happened?

The incomplete bar on the lefthand side tells us that the QC dropped in the middle of a work. When this happened, the work immediately stopped and the Tree activated its special ability-calling one random person to its containment cell in order to give them a blessing and get another orb. As for what dropped the QC? Every time an Abnormality escapes, there is a 30% chance that the QC drops by 1. There does not appear to be an exception in the code for Punishing Bird. Also, most of Gebura's missions involve letting Abnormalities break out in order to suppress them. I had completely forgotten this rule when choosing Abnormalities yesterday. I've made a terrible mistake.

Oh well, too late now. Let's deal with it.



Speaking of dealing with it, the next Scarecrow breach sees another QC reduction in Parasite Tree. This time it's attempting to pull Tenebrais in to bless her. Luckily, there is a way that we can stop this.



While the game is unpaused, we have to click on her a whole lot. Doing so slows her to a stop, until after a few more clicks…



Wait, what the hell was I doing out here? ...Eh, forget it.

The effect goes away and she returns to wherever she was before it went off. This is only mentioned in a couple of very early Abnormalities, and is always phrased as something like 'attempting to talk to them' so it's very easy to not know about this trick. It works on almost any Abnormality that possesses our agents to come to their cell, though, so it's vital to dealing with certain problem Abnormalities like Parasite Tree.

That said, while dealing with this the team in Training's corridor handles the fifth Scarecrow breach, which means…



Hah! How's that, Gebura?

You pass. Good job.

You don't sound too impressed.

That's because this is the bare minimum to be considered competent. We'll make things more interesting tomorrow.

Ah. I bet I know what that means.



Around now I also trade the newbies around-Morgan to work Repression with a Dreaming Current, Robin takes over training Insight using DRV, and Chiral finally gets to work on a WAW, training with Knight of Despair. They should be maxed out and ready to go anywhere in just a couple more days at this rate.



I see… The T-pose is to assert blessedness!

Unfortunately I miscount my works and then miss Credentia due to 2x speed, meaning she gets the blessing as well. That puts us at 3 glowy buds. We've still got wiggle room since nothing happens until 5, but… whoops.



Same bless!

Same bless!

Really don't see what the big deal is.



I'm like… right here.

Hm hm hm~

...ouch, man. Ouch.



Manager, we will be seeing a Violet Noon with the next level.

I'll try and have us done before then. Doesn't Yesod normally mention it, though?

I ah... Thinking about them makes my head hurt, manager.

Oh… oh yeah. Right. Sorry about that.

It's alright, sir.



Around now I wind up wanting Chiral to start a work on Knight of Despair, but don't want to wait for them to recover SP. This is the best time to use a SP bullet-or MP bullet, as the game's interface still calls them. By restoring their SP, we can immediately send them right back to work on Knight of Despair without waiting for the regenerator to do its work. So we do that.

Enkephelicious!



Mmm… it's been rather quiet around here of late. Not much for a Safety Team to do when it's all so safe!

Weren't there multiple breaches today?

Ah… so there were! HAHAHA! I suppose they were safe breaches!

And why are we all standing around here..? Shouldn't we move out of the way of the Violet Noon?

It would take more than a Noon to kill me…

Hey… we just got word that things are going to be closing up soon. I guess the manager's done for the day.

I guess that explains it.



Hey, Kit? I've been getting some weird reports of… sightings.

What sort of sightings?

People have seen you swapping the contents of their lockers, and carving the soap into the shape of… well it's not work appropriate!

Why, I would never carve the soap into anything inappropriate!

Ssssure you wouldn't. Anyways, just try and keep the chaos to a minimum?

Oh… I will. I can promise you, I will keep it to an absolute minimum. Muuahahahahaha!!!

Um..?

Well... he did promise, so it should be fine now. Let's get those final reports turned in.





Everyone's back here, right? Great, it's time for debriefing.

How'd everyone's days go?

I got some valuable research data on the Abnormalities and their responses to Insight and Instinct works.

I got ten times more awesome than I started the day.

I got a fancy tie to go with my hat.

...man, now I want a fancy tie.

We'll see what we can do.



Good effort. I'll expect the same tomorrow.

Evil Kit and the newbies all make it to level 5, putting the entire facility there. So long as it's only a handful of Agents, we can max them out relatively quickly-though another really good Repression trainer besides Blue Star would be wonderful to see today. Speaking of…

Music: never frozen bottom flows


D-03-109: ...and my dear employees, I do hope you all put on the gas masks we distributed to you before we enter.
T-01-31: From break and ruin, the most beautiful performance begins.
D-01-105: "Tales say that the moon bewitches man, yet in reality, it is the man that despairs at the moon."

We've spoken about -31 before, the ALEPH whose QC decreases on Good or Bad results. Its gear would still be nice, but I don't want to have to deal with it and Birdzodia at the same time, so it's currently a 'no,' at least until we can find a way to make the bird a nonissue.

Next is -109, which is also an ALEPH and one of the most infamous Abnormalities in the game for… let's say 'several reasons.' The one relevant right now is its tricky handling rules, which effectively require us being able to have an agent be completely alone while dealing with it. I'll be honest-I almost took it, just because its position would be ideal for dealing with it-the upper layer of Disciplinary would only have it and a tool Abnormality, and I could set whoever was working with it on the upper layer of Disciplinary's main room and largely forget about them. If not for the missions we have coming up making it impossible to avoid having Agents scrambling every which way, we'd be grabbing it today. In the end, though, this is another definite no right now.



With two hard nos, that leaves -105 by default. Luckily, it is incredibly stylish.

Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: It turns out Hod appears in one more scene than I originally thought.

New Guidelines

Parasite Tree

New Gear


Requirements: Fortitude 3, Prudence 3


Requirements: Prudence 3


Requirements: Level 3, Fortitude 2
*Not affected by Attack Speed


Requirements: Level 4, Temperance 3, Justice 3


Requirements: Prudence 3

New Story

Parasite Tree (Part 1)
Parasite Tree (Part 2)