Part 2: Aboard The Red Sprite

Crisis





They're changing course, Sir... They're getting separated from the formation!



Our ship's being pulled in by an unknown gravitational force!
Control system alert! The nav systems have been compromised!
...I'm picking up a problem with the shield as well, Sir!
The plasma shield's output has dropped! It can't withstand the impacts from outside!
We'll be sitting ducks at this rate!
Arthur! Analysis and report!



It may have clashed with the organic defense system. Details at this time are unknown.
Analysis in progress...
..."Pursuing"!?
Am I to understand the Schwarzwelt is attacking our ship!?
This is ludicrous...!



That's enough of that! Cool it!
The drones we sent ahead got in fine, and the Red Sprite will too! This turbulence'll stop soon!
Man, I dunno... I don't think this is any kinda normal turbulence.



We're fighting men. This sort of danger comes with the territory.
...Here, you seem composed enough, Hitonari.
Feeling relaxed, are we?
Deep down, I'm praying.
Ah, more devout than you look, eh?
Well, give me a humble man any day over those whose bravado reaches nigh toxic levels...



Picking up an SOS from the Blue Jet! No response from the Elve or Gigantic!
The engine reactor is down!
The thrusters have stopped! We've lost navigation entirely!
Damn! Get me Engineering!
Arthur, where is that analysis!?
The cause of the interference has yet to be determined.



Priority One is a soft landing. We will use our remaining energy reserves to control the ship.
...We're in for a crash landing!?



We're going down, Commander!
...Stay in there! Maintain evasive maneuvers!
It's us or nothing! We can't afford to be sunk here!

And thus the Red Sprite fell with a deafening roar...

Fear



There are three gentlemen sitting here with you...



Do they know who it is they are dealing with?
They cannot. If they did, they would not attempt this...
'Tis true. After all, there is no stopping the world's end...



Leave him. He is but a soul that will soon crumble.
No... no, this man... he may prove interesting.
Now that you mention it... he does look like a hardy one.
His soul will not be devoured so easily.
If the two of you say so, I will let your opinion sway me...
Up, yound man. We shall send you back.
But first, tell us your name.



Tadano Hitonari, yes. We shall remember that.
Now then, Tadano Hitonari.
Here in this blasted land of ruin, what will you find...?



But first, you must fall. Fall and struggle.
If a glimmmer of hope exists within you... show it to us.
Hey...
...Hey...!

You hear a voice calling from outside the room.

...Hey! Hitonari, can you me!?
Dammit, he's out cold! Hitonari! Hitonari...!
Tell no one of what you saw here.



Silence



Alright, he's breathing again! We can rest easy now!
Are you okay, Hitonari!? Are you lucid? Do you know who you are?
You were in cardiopulmonary arrest!



What was that...? It hit me like a ton of bricks...
Is everyone okay?
...Well, I guess he's still breathing.
Hitonari! Can you move?
This might hurt, so sorry about that. Doesn't look like you'll get a rest in this situation.
The electricity is shot. It's... Well, it's bad.



The ship has suffered a system crash of unknown causes while entering the Schwarzwelt.
As a result, we lost control of the ship and made a crash landing.
All the ship's engines have stopped, and Arthur, our command unit, is also out of commission.
We have yet to regain proper control of the ship.



All strike team members who hear this message must report to the command room immediately!
You'll receive further orders through the Demonica's comm. Keep it on at all times!
You may be exposed to the outside atmosphere at a moment's notice. Do NOT remove your Demonica suit!
I say again: Strike team members must report to the command room! That is all.



But without electricity, we can't even check to see what it's like out there!
That was a rougher landing than I expected. Guess the Demonica's our only lifeline for now...
Alright, Hitonari, let's move it and groove it to the command room!

In The Master's Name



We were sucked into a gravitational field, and now we're shipwrecked inside the Schwarzwelt.
Ship 2, the Blue Jet; Ship 3, the Elve; and Ship 4, the Gigantic...
All three are unresponsive. We're on our own, ladies and gentlemen.
But we are not sitting here and watiting for help to come. We have to get ourselves out of this jam.
Right now, we're trapped inside a powerless ship.
But if everyone works together, we can get out of here and on to the next step!



First order of business: the restoration of the Red Sprite's power.
We seem to be having trouble resetting the main reactor at the moment...
But the emergency sub-reactor should be bootable.
Once we get some energy flowing, consult Arthur for your next orders.
Engineering, do you read? Report!



Reading you loud and clear, Sir. Over!
Copy that, Terry. Glad you're all right.
I want you to start up the sub-reactor ASAP. Can you do it?
We need to get the ship's power up and running for Arthur.



The plasma armor, too, sir? That, I'm afraid, will take awhile.
Then get started. We need it.
We don't want to end up like the drones that got wrecked by "artificial causes," now do we?



There's no telling WHAT'S out there at present, but we should prepare ourselves while we can.
If we can keep the outside world at bay with our plasma armor, then whatever's waiting...

Silence



What's going on? Talk to me!



Why in God's name are you opening the hatch? Belay that right now!
I... I can't! There's no power to work the mechanisms!
Is someone... opening it!?
...Huh? I don't see anything...

Crisis



M-Man down! We're under attack!
One officer down! Unknown assailant!
Terry! What's going on!?
...I can't see him! I can't tell who's attacking us...!
Wh-What do we do? Commander, your orders, please!
......! Another man down!
Wha--!
Arrrrrrrrgh! ...Ahhh... ...ugh....



No, not Terry!



Get to the deck, on the double!
Secure Terry's safety and the rest of the deck crew's at once!
We can't die here! Am I understood?



We'll be seeing a lot of main missions throughout the game. They are all "here's the next main plot event."

We're counting on you, Hitonari!

Prayer



Alright, so now that we've gotten a plot change, that means available dialogue has changed. This is going to happen a lot. The Red Sprite crew are honestly really great so we'll get to talk to them a bunch!



Well, whoever it is, it's an invader of some kind! Never mind us, go provide backup!



You head to the deck and help them fend off the enemy there.



But you mustn't forget, everyone here is the elite of the elite.
There's nothing a force like that can't accomplish.
Now get to repelling those infiltrators! Go to the deck, soldier!

Well, you heard the Commander. Let's move on out!



Sadly, the Sickbay and Lab are still completely deserted so we really only have the one option right now.

Silence



Strong winds, huh? Gonna keep that one in mind.



Looks like we were too late to save Terry. Dammit, and he was my favorite too!



Oh...! You're one of us! Did you come to save me?



I know what you're thinking at this point. There's no way to identify any specific one person from their Demonica alone, right?

You're mostly right, yes. Hitonari here is a bit... different though. His Demonica is unique:



If it's not really super-obvious what makes it different, just compare it to every other Demonica we've seen. Or look at the image in the music videos sometime, or check the OP. It's more obvious in them. Either way, there's one feature that should stand out.

I'm Terry, with Engineering!

Oh and Terry's okay!

Be careful... Whatever attacked us should still be in the area.
We have to restart the sub-reactor and get the deck and armor up and running again!
So if you're on the strike team, you must have weapons on you, right?
I'm going into the reactor room from the side of the deck to restart the sub-reactor.
I need you to stop any attacks from coming into the reactor room! I'm counting on you!

> Terry went into the reactor room...

Okay, great. Our first mission is guard duty. Sure, whatever. Hard to mess up, at least.

...Hitonari. Hitonari...



Hey, backup! Sweet! Now we can fulfil the ultimate guard duty cliché and just take a nap.

I heard your Situation. We just have to stand guard here, right? Alright, keep quiet, men.
What ARE those guys, anyway...?
...Terry? How you doin'? Got that reactor restarted yet?



Roget that. Speed it up, if you can...
...Everything okay, Hitonari?
C'mon... We're almost there... Stay away just a little longer, you bastards...
Hey...! Alright, I got it!
Starting the sub-reactor now!



Alright! Mission clear too, sweet. If I know my D&D rules as well as I think I do, we just nailed an easy 50 EXP out of this.

Good one, Terry! The power's back on!
Now get back to the deck!



Now that hatch can--



I guess that counts as animation...? Kind of? Maybe? If you squint I mean.

Anyway, oh no Strike Team B has died! Somehow!



You can't discern who the attacker is!

Crisis



Where!? Where is it!?

The strike team member fired wildly around!

This doesn't even get half-hearted fauxnimation.

*pant* ...!

And then Strike Team A died as well. Man they're bad at this, but at least we still have Te--



TERRY, NO!

The enemy... I can't see it! What am I supposed to do!?

You feel something approach you...

A program has been sent to your Demonica!



Sure is convenient we got this just in time to prevent the MC dying horrifically to a cutscene fight, huh?

You received a program on your Demonica through the ship's control system!

You check the program name displayed on the Demonica...



You already knew that this was the case. This IS an SMT game after all; it was inevitable.



The enemy! I can see them!
Hitonari! They're right on top of you!



...Shit, we're being attacked by pixels. What's the best defence against an awful even-for-an-Adam-Sandler-movie movie?

First Encounter

An Honor Befitting That Name
sj has a couple really sweet themes here and there this is one of them



So, welcome to our requisite Tutorial Fight. It implicitly teaches us a bunch of things at once. First, combat is dirt simple because it's a turn-based RPG.

Second, whenever you encounter a thing for the first time you do not know what it is. There ARE exceptions, but they're just that. Exceptions.



Being a soldier, we have a Sword which is just a basic physical attack with your melee weapon and nothing else.



Being a soldier, we also have a Gun. This is basically the MC's spell-equivalents. We can make a basic attack with our ranged weapon or spend MP to do extra things. In this case it's "hit a dude with Fire and not Gun elemental damage."



There is a bit more to it than that but we'll get more into it later. For now, we'll check out that Fire Shot in part because I know what these things actually are and in part because it costs MP so it's gotta be good, right?



Well, uh, no. Our Unknown enemy here is weak to Fire but that just means these things take 25% more damage. You might also notice that this doesn't actually give us any benefit other than this minor damage increase. It will later, but right now it sure doesn't.



Since we're fighting piss-weak enemies, we're not in any risk of actually dying here.

Note that our basic Sword attack outdamages Fire Shot, but either will two-shot these things right now. The Gun's basic attack hits everything but deals slightly less damage than Fire Shot. Thus, the Gun's basic attack wins here since its 3 hits max to take them both out as opposed to 4 with anything else.

Guns being the best option is going to be kind of a trend!

The End



We don't quite get enough EXP to level up from these two Slimes unfortunately. Analyze is kind of a simple system that we'll cover more when it matters more. All that's relevant right now is that a demon is only Unknown until you kill one.

End

Silence





...What do you mean "we"?

Wait... they were visible at the end there... Is that because of the program we just got?
"Demon Summoning Program"...!? What the hell is this!?



But we mustn't let them go any further into the ship!
Close the hatch at once!
Well, with the reactor running again, that shouldn't be a problem.
Leave the hatch controls to me, Hitonari!







We'll be clearing a lot of Main Missions, of course. I'll mostly gloss over this part from now on because it's kind of redunant.

Also, sadly, we don't actually get any Quest EXP or anything. Lame!



The next mission is in the planning stages. Strike team, report back to the command room immediately!
We need to find out who's attacking us... and we should know more about that program we received.



But be careful, Hitonari. There may still be some left in the ship.

We then get auto-transitioned to the Command Room to continue the scene, rather than get a bit of a break.

Malevolence and Benevolence





Kato, hurry and reboot Arthur.
Williams, get the plasma armor back online.
Roger that, Sir. I'll make restoring Arthur my top priority.
I'll coordinate with the strike team to restart the plasma armor.
Strike team, I want to commend you for a job well done in repelling the enemy force.
Excellent work out there, Hitonari.
But I want to know what this program is that lets us see our invisible enemies...



But Commander, do you think it's okay for us to use?
The "Demon Summoning Program," huh? Strange name.
A program that controls demons...
I take that to mean it was demons that attacked us?
Once we get Arthur back online, we'll have him analyze it.



He's been a little haywire since the crash. There might be some structural damage to the CPU...
It'll get a little rough, but I'm going to try hacking in.
...Hm? What the...?



Looks like the program got distributed by overriding Arthur's administrative systems.
There's a log...? Kato, can you identify the sender?



But beyond that, it's impossible to say. There's a message here, though... let me play it back.

Kato displayed the message from the log on the main monitor.

Silence



You have arrived here in this Land ruled by Demons due to the Karma of Mankind.

But Despair is not all that remains. There is still Hope nestled within your Fear.

The Demons you will encounter are your Enemies as well as your Allies.

Will you stand against them?

Will you make of them your Demon Allies?

That will be decided by the Demon Summoning Program.



As your fellow Bearers of Karma, we assure you of this.

We existed before... and soon...



So the enemy WERE demons...
Preposterous. This situation has become absolutely preposterous, but...
Our fate's in the hands of this Demon Summoning Program now.
......
Attention, all hands.



Should you encounter any problems or malfunctions with the program, call them in immediately.

Crisis



Help us... Someone, help us!
Calm down, soldier! What's going on there!?
The enemy... We're under attack from the enemy!
I... I've never seen anything like it! Please! Send help...!



How were there still any left inside the ship!?
Sickbay, do you read? We're sending immediate backup! Hide until they arrive--do not engage!
Strike team, move out! Get your asses to sickbay!

Prayer



We now have a new objective (complete with a new main mission that really doesn't matter), and things have changed a bit. Which means the Red Sprite crew have new things to say!

Probably.



But all that can wait! Let's mop up the rest of the demons inside the ship!



I don't see how we have a choice other than to rely on the Demon Summoning Program for survival.



If you're hurt, though, it's better not to fight while injured.
Pick up some medical supplies at the lab and prepare yourself for engaging the enemy.

Don't mind if I do!





Also, uh, we actually do have to. We don't need to use any of them; just collect them.

But either way Medicine is the most basic of healing items. It won't remain super useful for very long and even then it's only really helpful in two situations - one of which we're still a bit away from.



And, of course, if we try and head to the Deck right now, we just get booted right back out.

Crisis



I was just attacked by these... these THINGS!
...There! They're right there!



Lady, just because Slimes are mistakes made manifest and abominations not meant to walk this Earth does not make them any less human than you or me!

Kill! Kiiiiillillll!

An Honor Befitting That Name



Two more slimes, completely identical to last time except now we can see them. That's it.

The End



The good news here is that this time we do get to level up.



Or, rather, our Demonica does? Sure, whatever. No damage output increase isn't that big a deal right now, honestly.

Anyway, yes briefly:

Strength affects damage done by Sword and Gun attacks.
Magic affects damage done by attack items (yes, really) and received by magic. For demons replace attack items with, y'know, magic.
Vitality is HP and physical defense. Very standard.
Agility is accuracy, evasion and turn order. You'd think Gun damage but you'd be wrong.
Luck is a lot of things; ailment chance, drop rates, accuracy, evasion, escape rate and critical hits.

Also note that because we leveled up, we regained all of our HP and MP. This is, bar none, the best way to get a full heal.

Silence



Okay... okay... I can't lose it now. Gotta calm down...
There'll be injured to treat... I need to get this place ready to receive them!



Great work!
It seems our demon analysis reports become more detailed the more we fight them...
I guess it's one of the perks of the Demon Summoning Program.

Crisis



They weren't just going after sickbay!
You've been hit...? The demons!? What happened!?



We're still trying to sort out the details now...
But we believe some of them have been taken outside of the ship!

Who gets kidnapped by SLIMES?! I mean, really now.

Understood. We'll devise a response plan immediately.
All strike team members not engaged in active duty, return immediately to the command room!

Like before, we don't get much of a choice in the matter.



It's at times like this when we must keep our cool to make the right decisions and act on them.
We must get our men back.



All indicates show that there aren't any demons left inside.
All right. Maintain the current alert status and keep those men patrolling.
Ops, give me a report on the missing crewmen.
One from comms, one from monitors, one from maintenance...



I'm sure this Irving guy isn't going to be very important. I mean, just look at Terry!

Irving too!?
This gets worse and worse... Without him, we have no way to restock supplies and munitions!
Monitors! Give me a feasibility on a field excursion. What's the atmosphere like out there?



As our earlier report mentioned, we should be unaffected so long as we wear our Demonicas.
...All right. Then let's hustle.
Strike team, I hvae new mission orders for you.



For lack of hard data on our surroundings...
We'll designate each battlefield we come across as a sector, followed by a codename.





Commander, we've managed to get the plasma armor online!
Excellent work, men! Now we can secure the ship's safety.
Srike team, your orders stand: focus on rescuing those missing crewmen!



I know it's a rough situation, but we can't afford to lose you too. Stay focused out there!



The fate of the Earth rests with us. We cannot fall here!
Draw medical kits at the lab before heading out.

Prayer



Don't worry, it seems like there's a lot of talking in general but it's pretty much over and done with now. Even the crew's dialogue won't be updated this much this quickly ever again.



I'm counting on you, Hitonari. Bring 'em back alive, okay?



So... is whoever sent it telling us to communicate with demons...?
Is that even possible...?



Begin the search and secure the crew's safety at once.

So now we'll head on over to the lab for those free med kits. Could come in handy at some point.



It'd be nice if I could replenish your supplies or strengthen your weapons, but...
Oh, hey! I CAN get you medicine if you need it. Just let me run and fetch some from in back!

This nets us 10 more Medicine. Sure, whatever.

Right... if you're hurt, please go rest up in sickbay.
Well, good luck!

Before we head on over to the deck, we'll take a small detour to the sickbay.



Now, hold still...

Right now, Zoe gives us a full heal for free. How generous but completely unneeded.

When you're wounded in battle, come see me and I'll fix you up.

So that just leaves the Deck. Let's go then!



Yes.
Okay, you're clear to go outside! Good luck!



Antlia is named after the constellation in the southern hemisphere. It is comprised of 53 stars in total, but only has 3 main ones.



Its name means "pump" as in the air pump. When it was discovered in 1751(ish; the book I have says 1751 flatout but it could be anywhere from 1750-1754), by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, it was originally named Antlia Pneumatica. Which you can surmise from Antlia being Latin for "pump" means it was named after the French invention of the pneumatic pump. Needless to say, it's not an old-school classical myth constellation but it was only made one of the modern 88 Constellations in 1922.



But that's actual Antlia. Sector A is... different.

We'll go check it out shortly, but first let's talk to Dent!



But I guess I'm not cut out for this job if I let things like that faze me.
I'm counting on you, Hitonari. Save those crewmen.



Our Antlia appears to be a frozen cave and contains demons. We have folks to save so let's go!