Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)
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Wasn't her being our strongpoint on helping deal with the Class 3 demon infestation the primary reason we even brought her here?
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
We are still almost certainly going to need her against the Eyeball.
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
And she's still good for killing non-teleporters. It'd be a lot easier to kill the swarmy teleport demons if that's all there was, numerically, if not tactically.
Nagoya already tried this; the teleporting demons teleport away when faced with superior numbers.
So we can't prevent the enemy from totally out-maneuvering us; in fact, from the description the Class 3s run away before we can even hit them, meaning we can't even win through attrition. This is basically the second-worst situation that I can think of, with the worst being that Serena's aura did nothing at all and we lost all our Elites in a Class 3 swarm. One reason this outcome is so bad is that, because we can't secure even a small bit of territory, not only is the Sensor Net idea out, but the clock is now ticking even faster now: if we can't start killing teleporting demons and securing territory, fast, then the Tokyo girls are going to find out about a hole in the Class 3 net, come streaming out in a flood, and suddenly we're having to deal with dozens to hundreds of poachers encroaching on our home territory, at least until Tokyo pulls a Hong Kong in a few months, Mitakihara becomes a ghost town, and we have to flee the country.
So, new plan seeds:
1) Aranfan's honeytrap idea.
2) Tandem vet / Elite / tandem Elite stealth: try to conceal Serena's presence long enough to sneak up on a Class 3 and snipe it. Hope that we can at least clear out Kanagawa before Kyoko or one of our other stealth girls end up a permanent resident of Serena's aura.
...
0) Declare mission failure, run back to Mitakihara and prepare for massive PvP combat. Try to research teleport interdiction / anti-magic fields before Tokyo dies.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
No casualties are good...
I think you meant has been rendered pointless.
Okay, good. Aura is significant. Serena can handle single demons.
Hmmm.... problem. Aura is more effective than thought and demons are less aggressive than expected. (Not less intelligent, less aggressive.)
Hmm... might need to devote some resources to rounding these girls up. Can't have them making trouble for Area 15/16.
Sigh... probably need to have contingency plans in case they freak...
Well that's useful.
Okay... so how do we stop teleporters from escaping?
First thought is bait. Though that is dangerous.
Second thought... I wonder if we can put a tandem barrier around the teleporting demons.
Maybe we can test real quick with a teleport charm and barrier girls...
It's late, so I'm going to sleep on this before proposing any real plans.
Fixed.
No interaction there. Barriers stopping teleporting in general would make your teleporters way too weak.
This was pretty much to be expected though.
Omake: Operation Anunnaki
Keiko rifled through the papers she had been handed, pausing over certain points, and referring back to others to verify some point or another. The frown on her face grew more and more severe. Suddenly she started flipping through the papers on her desk, until she found what she was looking for, and started cross-referencing against the new set. Finally, she leaned back in her chair, tapping the papers absentmindedly against the edge of her desk.
The girl who had delivered the information was still standing nervously, trying not to obviously edge towards the door, and knowing that she wouldn't be able to leave yet anyway.
"Miaka!"
The abrupt shout caused the still standing girl to jump and give a frightened squeak. Keiko seemed to ignore this. Instead, she dug into her pockets and pulled out a few bills and some loose change, handing it over with seemingly little concern, followed by a series of rapid-fire instructions.
"Go down to Lawson's. Pick up a 2 kilo bag of Kitty Munch for Kittens. Also, one can of Kitty Nibbles — the one with the blue label. Don't forget. Then go to the shrine, the one in the 4-chome district. Place 500 yen in the offering box, and pray. Then open the Kitty Nibbles can and place it under the walkway on the east side of the temple. Don't let the miko see you. Then come back here and put two scoops of the Kitty Munch in the yellow bowl in the corner. Put whatever money is leftover in the spare change jar in the kitchen."
With that, Keiko turned to her computer and started typing. After a few seconds, though, she paused. Glancing at the other girl, she asked, "Are you still here?"
"Right!" Miaka replied, with a confused attempt at a salute. "I'll get right on it, ma'am!" She quickly turned and was out the door before anything else could be said.
Once the door closed behind the girl, Keiko let out a long sigh. Ignoring the computer, she went back to the reports she had been given and started shuffling through all of them all over again, a frustration evident on her face. She scribbled down a few notes on one of the pages, before scratching most of them out again. She started long and hard at what was remaining, before abruptly standing, gathering the pages together, and determinedly moving towards the door her junior had passed through not long before.
The office door slammed open. Well, office was a bit of an overstatement; a room had been appropriated for use when a bit of privacy was needed, away from the turmoil of the general living areas of the house. Faces turned to face Keiko as she entered, who in turn looked over the occupants of the room.
Mami — apparently caught in the midst of trying to communicate something to the girls shown on the video monitor — was giving her a somewhat stern, but curious gaze. Well, it wasn't like this was the first time Keiko had stormed in on her.
Kyouko sat on a chair in the corner, pocky stick hanging from her mouth, and a box in her hand. Keiko noted that another, empty, box was nestled on the floor under her feet.
Seto had a serious look on her face, while Hainako just looked worried. Serena and the other girls moving about on the monitor also appeared troubled.
"I got the report on what's been going on," said Keiko, tapping the papers in her hand. She stepped forward, pulling the door shut behind her. "Seems like we have a problem."
"You could say that," said Mami, cool poise despite the interruption. "We were discussing what sorts of adjustments we could make to our plans. Did you have something you wanted to contribute?"
"'Adjustments' aren't going to work," Keiko replied. "I think that much is already obvious to everybody?" she queried, glancing around at the others in the room. When there was no immediate objection, she dropped the pages down on the table, her scribbled list of ideas face up. "We're going to have to take some chances, here. And for that, I'm suggesting..." she leaned over, pushing the papers directly under Mami's view, and pointing at one particular line.
"Operation Anunnaki."
...
"And what," drawled Kyouko around the pocky stick stuck in her mouth, "is 'Operation Anu-knickers'?"
Mami also looked up to give Keiko a querulous look. She had seen what Keiko had written (and scratched out), but she knew Keiko had to have more elaborate reasonings for whatever she suggested.
"Right," said Keiko, starting to pace. "We've been a bit blindsided by the demons actually running from us. Certainly, we should have expected that, but I think everyone figured that we'd at least have a chance to fight them before they scampered off."
Kyouko snorted at that. Seto, meanwhile moved back out of the way of the pacing scientist, while Hainako gave a soft, rapid translation to Serena's team in the background.
"From the schedule, it's clear everyone expected to be able to go after the major target fairly early on, and then just sweep up the mess afterwards. But if this is going to be standard behavior when encountering Serena's aura, we can't count on things to be that easy."
"So tell us something we don't know," mocked Kyouko.
Keiko grimaced. Kyouko had far more experience than the rest at actual fighting, and was the de facto military advisor for the group. Keiko had to not only convince Mami of the worth of her proposal, but convince Kyouko that it was strategically sound. She turned to address her next remarks to the redhead directly, ticking points off her fingers. "One: We cannot catch the teleporting demons. For all that the class 3's are otherwise easy to deal with, we have no tools for facing this particular ability. Two: We cannot track their movements. Teleporters cannot follow their path, and clairvoyants can't see where they go. Three: We cannot disrupt their actions. I've brainstormed a ton of ideas, but all of them are either ineffectual or out of our immediate reach, research-wise."
"Still, you don't—" Mami started to say.
"Look," Kyouko said, holding up a hand to halt Mami's comment, "we know we're in a bad spot. But we literally don't have any other tools to work with, and I know you don't have anything up your sleeves, either. The only option we have is an all-out strike on the main problem, so that we can at least be free to clean up most of the rest of the city."
Keiko, however, was already shaking her head. "An all-out strike on the beholder is not in our best interests right now. We don't have any solid understanding of how its specialties — both powers and miasma — work, and we don't have enough experience fighting teleporters to do well against it."
"And how exactly do you plan on getting experience fighting teleporters?" asked Seto, from the side. Her expression implied that she might not like the answer.
"Give me the manpower to do the research, and I think I can come up with a way to trap them long enough to fight."
Mami hmm'd at that. "I notice you have 'Fusion research' underlined a few times here. You think we're far enough along that we can expect results this month? We did already have some time set aside for that."
Keiko shook her head. "Not enough time, not with just a few girls. If we want to have a chance at figuring this out, we need to dedicate everything we have to this. I need 10 or 15 girls working on this full time, and we need to see if we can get any hints from the Coalition's research as well."
"What??" shouted Kyouko, pocky falling free of her mouth (though she caught it before it hit the floor). "That's as much as we have on the entire Tokyo hunt!"
"I must agree," said Mami. "That's an enormous request. Even if we are in a bit of a bind, can you really be sure we'll get anything useful out of that?"
Keiko shrugged uncomfortably. "50/50 shot, is the best I can figure. But!" she interrupted Kyouko's next rant, "even if we don't figure it out this month, I can almost guarantee we can have it by next month, if we keep pushing at it. We told everyone it could take up to three months to finish this; it's still within schedule."
"Um," Hainako spoke up. "Rae would like to know if this would mean that they can actually catch the teleporters. That is what you're suggesting, right?"
"Right," Keiko confirmed. "We can't win this if we can't catch the teleporters, so it doesn't matter what else we have to give up; we have to figure out a way to pin them down. And I'm pretty sure that if we can get a tandem spell effect combining teleportation and barriers, we can lock the little buggers in place for you to kill."
"That's an awfully big gamble," muttered Seto.
"Which is why we need more than just our own research," said Keiko. "Mami, you'd need to talk with the Coalition, see if you can get any info you can on their own tandem casting research. It may give us extra hints on areas we can explore. Heck, they might even have done research on fusion magic as well. I'd give you a kiss if you could get that info from them!"
"There's no need for that, Keiko," Mami demurred, holding a hand up against the possibility that Keiko might demonstrate. "But doing this would mean giving up our plans for connecting with the Tokyo locals."
"Not much point in that, is there?" noted Kyoko, before Keiko could respond. "You wanted 'em to give you pointers on where to find the teleporters, but if we can't catch 'em, who cares where they're at?"
"Even still... We'd still need to pull a few more girls off of other duties, and I'm not sure where we could squeeze out the extra time."
After a few moments of silence, Serena spoke up over the intercom. Hainako spoke for her: "The escorts you set up for me do not really seem necessary for our work. Would you like to pull them away to make up for the extra time you need?"
Mami frowned at that. "I'd really rather not. There are still risks that we haven't encountered, and I don't want to leave you without any support at all. If the Beholder decided to attack you, we wouldn't be in any position to help."
"Oh, please, Mami," Kyouko remarked. "We're sitting on our thumbs out there half the time anyway. Give us something to do so we don't all die of boredom."
Mami hesitated, then nodded. "We could perhaps allow for that. Still, is that all we can really do right now?"
"Actually," Seto commented, "Yuka mentioned something about the comments some of the Nagoya people made, after we gave them updates on our progress. I take it they mocked her a bit about it, but also mentioned that they'd tried getting help from the Heaven's Chosen for that same problem. The Osaka group apparently has some anti-teleportation tricks, but doesn't like to share. And from your look, this is a bit of a surprise for you?"
Mami nodded, somewhat wide-eyed. "Hino didn't mention anything about that when I was there."
"Hmm. Well, if they couldn't get the info, they probably figured you already had plans, or something. Still, just because Nagoya couldn't negotiate with them doesn't mean we can't. We know Nagoya's on pretty bad terms with the whole Kyoto-Osaka region. Maybe try to get in contact with them?"
Mami nodded at that. "Yes, open relations with them, at the very least. If we can't manage to successfully research this project on our own, they may give us other options to work with." She looked around. "Does anyone have any other ideas?"
"I already told ya what I thought," said Kyouko, shrugging.
Seto just shook her head. "I wish I could help you figure out how to fight these things, but ultimately, if a teleporter doesn't want to fight you, there's not much you can do about it. Once you have a way to pin them down, though, I'd be happy to help work on your tactics."
Some soft muttering came from the video conference system, and then Hainako simply said, "We'll go along with whatever you decide, Mami-san."
Mami closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, her resolve was firm. "Very well. All resources will be redirected towards anti-teleportation research, both our own and whatever we can gather from our neighbors. Serena," she said, turning towards the monitor, "you and your team will continue to exterminate the non-teleporting demons that are within our reach along the border. Avoid the Beholder for now, but know that your escort team will be there with you in case contact is unavoidable. I'll be spending time speaking with the Coalition to try to get them to share any research tidbits that could help our progress. We'll also reach out to the Heaven's Chosen group, to see what we can learn from them. If this doesn't work..." Mami's gaze returned to Keiko.
"What about Nagoya?" Kyouko interrupted.
"Pardon?" Mami asked.
"We called them in because we thought we'd be scaring all the demons away, and they'd be running out towards the nearby regions. But if we can't touch the teleporters, are they even going to run? You going to have them doing anything special during the month?"
"And the magical girls from Tokyo," Seto chimed in. "Yamakage and the others aren't the only ones trying to escape, but as bad as things are in Tokyo, if they leave, it'll get even worse. If we don't get this research finished quick, how many of those girls are we going to be able to support?"
Mami grimaced. Even if they had a plan for the demons, it was far from the end of the meeting.
As the talks wrapped up, Kyouko left the room on the heels of Keiko, keeping pace with her.
"So what's with that 'Anunnaki' thing, anyway?" asked Kyouko.
Keiko noted that Kyouko got the name right this time, despite appearing to mishear the first time around. Still, she smiled. "The ancient gods, born of the sky. They came into existence and formed a new world. They are the seven judges of hell that set the land aflame before the oncoming storm."
Kyouko raised her eyebrows at that. "OK," she said with a chuckle. "I can get behind that."
As they continued walking down the hall, Kyouko spoke up again. "So... Who are the seven judges supposed to be?"
"Ah, I hadn't quite figured that out yet," admitted Keiko.
"Is there a god of war? Cause I wanna be the god of war."
"I'll... keep that in mind."
"And food!"
"Right."
"And maybe cats."
"Hey! Cats are mine!"
The girl who had delivered the information was still standing nervously, trying not to obviously edge towards the door, and knowing that she wouldn't be able to leave yet anyway.
"Miaka!"
The abrupt shout caused the still standing girl to jump and give a frightened squeak. Keiko seemed to ignore this. Instead, she dug into her pockets and pulled out a few bills and some loose change, handing it over with seemingly little concern, followed by a series of rapid-fire instructions.
"Go down to Lawson's. Pick up a 2 kilo bag of Kitty Munch for Kittens. Also, one can of Kitty Nibbles — the one with the blue label. Don't forget. Then go to the shrine, the one in the 4-chome district. Place 500 yen in the offering box, and pray. Then open the Kitty Nibbles can and place it under the walkway on the east side of the temple. Don't let the miko see you. Then come back here and put two scoops of the Kitty Munch in the yellow bowl in the corner. Put whatever money is leftover in the spare change jar in the kitchen."
With that, Keiko turned to her computer and started typing. After a few seconds, though, she paused. Glancing at the other girl, she asked, "Are you still here?"
"Right!" Miaka replied, with a confused attempt at a salute. "I'll get right on it, ma'am!" She quickly turned and was out the door before anything else could be said.
Once the door closed behind the girl, Keiko let out a long sigh. Ignoring the computer, she went back to the reports she had been given and started shuffling through all of them all over again, a frustration evident on her face. She scribbled down a few notes on one of the pages, before scratching most of them out again. She started long and hard at what was remaining, before abruptly standing, gathering the pages together, and determinedly moving towards the door her junior had passed through not long before.
~~
The office door slammed open. Well, office was a bit of an overstatement; a room had been appropriated for use when a bit of privacy was needed, away from the turmoil of the general living areas of the house. Faces turned to face Keiko as she entered, who in turn looked over the occupants of the room.
Mami — apparently caught in the midst of trying to communicate something to the girls shown on the video monitor — was giving her a somewhat stern, but curious gaze. Well, it wasn't like this was the first time Keiko had stormed in on her.
Kyouko sat on a chair in the corner, pocky stick hanging from her mouth, and a box in her hand. Keiko noted that another, empty, box was nestled on the floor under her feet.
Seto had a serious look on her face, while Hainako just looked worried. Serena and the other girls moving about on the monitor also appeared troubled.
"I got the report on what's been going on," said Keiko, tapping the papers in her hand. She stepped forward, pulling the door shut behind her. "Seems like we have a problem."
"You could say that," said Mami, cool poise despite the interruption. "We were discussing what sorts of adjustments we could make to our plans. Did you have something you wanted to contribute?"
"'Adjustments' aren't going to work," Keiko replied. "I think that much is already obvious to everybody?" she queried, glancing around at the others in the room. When there was no immediate objection, she dropped the pages down on the table, her scribbled list of ideas face up. "We're going to have to take some chances, here. And for that, I'm suggesting..." she leaned over, pushing the papers directly under Mami's view, and pointing at one particular line.
"Operation Anunnaki."
...
"And what," drawled Kyouko around the pocky stick stuck in her mouth, "is 'Operation Anu-knickers'?"
Mami also looked up to give Keiko a querulous look. She had seen what Keiko had written (and scratched out), but she knew Keiko had to have more elaborate reasonings for whatever she suggested.
"Right," said Keiko, starting to pace. "We've been a bit blindsided by the demons actually running from us. Certainly, we should have expected that, but I think everyone figured that we'd at least have a chance to fight them before they scampered off."
Kyouko snorted at that. Seto, meanwhile moved back out of the way of the pacing scientist, while Hainako gave a soft, rapid translation to Serena's team in the background.
"From the schedule, it's clear everyone expected to be able to go after the major target fairly early on, and then just sweep up the mess afterwards. But if this is going to be standard behavior when encountering Serena's aura, we can't count on things to be that easy."
"So tell us something we don't know," mocked Kyouko.
Keiko grimaced. Kyouko had far more experience than the rest at actual fighting, and was the de facto military advisor for the group. Keiko had to not only convince Mami of the worth of her proposal, but convince Kyouko that it was strategically sound. She turned to address her next remarks to the redhead directly, ticking points off her fingers. "One: We cannot catch the teleporting demons. For all that the class 3's are otherwise easy to deal with, we have no tools for facing this particular ability. Two: We cannot track their movements. Teleporters cannot follow their path, and clairvoyants can't see where they go. Three: We cannot disrupt their actions. I've brainstormed a ton of ideas, but all of them are either ineffectual or out of our immediate reach, research-wise."
"Still, you don't—" Mami started to say.
"Look," Kyouko said, holding up a hand to halt Mami's comment, "we know we're in a bad spot. But we literally don't have any other tools to work with, and I know you don't have anything up your sleeves, either. The only option we have is an all-out strike on the main problem, so that we can at least be free to clean up most of the rest of the city."
Keiko, however, was already shaking her head. "An all-out strike on the beholder is not in our best interests right now. We don't have any solid understanding of how its specialties — both powers and miasma — work, and we don't have enough experience fighting teleporters to do well against it."
"And how exactly do you plan on getting experience fighting teleporters?" asked Seto, from the side. Her expression implied that she might not like the answer.
"Give me the manpower to do the research, and I think I can come up with a way to trap them long enough to fight."
Mami hmm'd at that. "I notice you have 'Fusion research' underlined a few times here. You think we're far enough along that we can expect results this month? We did already have some time set aside for that."
Keiko shook her head. "Not enough time, not with just a few girls. If we want to have a chance at figuring this out, we need to dedicate everything we have to this. I need 10 or 15 girls working on this full time, and we need to see if we can get any hints from the Coalition's research as well."
"What??" shouted Kyouko, pocky falling free of her mouth (though she caught it before it hit the floor). "That's as much as we have on the entire Tokyo hunt!"
"I must agree," said Mami. "That's an enormous request. Even if we are in a bit of a bind, can you really be sure we'll get anything useful out of that?"
Keiko shrugged uncomfortably. "50/50 shot, is the best I can figure. But!" she interrupted Kyouko's next rant, "even if we don't figure it out this month, I can almost guarantee we can have it by next month, if we keep pushing at it. We told everyone it could take up to three months to finish this; it's still within schedule."
"Um," Hainako spoke up. "Rae would like to know if this would mean that they can actually catch the teleporters. That is what you're suggesting, right?"
"Right," Keiko confirmed. "We can't win this if we can't catch the teleporters, so it doesn't matter what else we have to give up; we have to figure out a way to pin them down. And I'm pretty sure that if we can get a tandem spell effect combining teleportation and barriers, we can lock the little buggers in place for you to kill."
"That's an awfully big gamble," muttered Seto.
"Which is why we need more than just our own research," said Keiko. "Mami, you'd need to talk with the Coalition, see if you can get any info you can on their own tandem casting research. It may give us extra hints on areas we can explore. Heck, they might even have done research on fusion magic as well. I'd give you a kiss if you could get that info from them!"
"There's no need for that, Keiko," Mami demurred, holding a hand up against the possibility that Keiko might demonstrate. "But doing this would mean giving up our plans for connecting with the Tokyo locals."
"Not much point in that, is there?" noted Kyoko, before Keiko could respond. "You wanted 'em to give you pointers on where to find the teleporters, but if we can't catch 'em, who cares where they're at?"
"Even still... We'd still need to pull a few more girls off of other duties, and I'm not sure where we could squeeze out the extra time."
After a few moments of silence, Serena spoke up over the intercom. Hainako spoke for her: "The escorts you set up for me do not really seem necessary for our work. Would you like to pull them away to make up for the extra time you need?"
Mami frowned at that. "I'd really rather not. There are still risks that we haven't encountered, and I don't want to leave you without any support at all. If the Beholder decided to attack you, we wouldn't be in any position to help."
"Oh, please, Mami," Kyouko remarked. "We're sitting on our thumbs out there half the time anyway. Give us something to do so we don't all die of boredom."
Mami hesitated, then nodded. "We could perhaps allow for that. Still, is that all we can really do right now?"
"Actually," Seto commented, "Yuka mentioned something about the comments some of the Nagoya people made, after we gave them updates on our progress. I take it they mocked her a bit about it, but also mentioned that they'd tried getting help from the Heaven's Chosen for that same problem. The Osaka group apparently has some anti-teleportation tricks, but doesn't like to share. And from your look, this is a bit of a surprise for you?"
Mami nodded, somewhat wide-eyed. "Hino didn't mention anything about that when I was there."
"Hmm. Well, if they couldn't get the info, they probably figured you already had plans, or something. Still, just because Nagoya couldn't negotiate with them doesn't mean we can't. We know Nagoya's on pretty bad terms with the whole Kyoto-Osaka region. Maybe try to get in contact with them?"
Mami nodded at that. "Yes, open relations with them, at the very least. If we can't manage to successfully research this project on our own, they may give us other options to work with." She looked around. "Does anyone have any other ideas?"
"I already told ya what I thought," said Kyouko, shrugging.
Seto just shook her head. "I wish I could help you figure out how to fight these things, but ultimately, if a teleporter doesn't want to fight you, there's not much you can do about it. Once you have a way to pin them down, though, I'd be happy to help work on your tactics."
Some soft muttering came from the video conference system, and then Hainako simply said, "We'll go along with whatever you decide, Mami-san."
Mami closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, her resolve was firm. "Very well. All resources will be redirected towards anti-teleportation research, both our own and whatever we can gather from our neighbors. Serena," she said, turning towards the monitor, "you and your team will continue to exterminate the non-teleporting demons that are within our reach along the border. Avoid the Beholder for now, but know that your escort team will be there with you in case contact is unavoidable. I'll be spending time speaking with the Coalition to try to get them to share any research tidbits that could help our progress. We'll also reach out to the Heaven's Chosen group, to see what we can learn from them. If this doesn't work..." Mami's gaze returned to Keiko.
"What about Nagoya?" Kyouko interrupted.
"Pardon?" Mami asked.
"We called them in because we thought we'd be scaring all the demons away, and they'd be running out towards the nearby regions. But if we can't touch the teleporters, are they even going to run? You going to have them doing anything special during the month?"
"And the magical girls from Tokyo," Seto chimed in. "Yamakage and the others aren't the only ones trying to escape, but as bad as things are in Tokyo, if they leave, it'll get even worse. If we don't get this research finished quick, how many of those girls are we going to be able to support?"
Mami grimaced. Even if they had a plan for the demons, it was far from the end of the meeting.
~~
As the talks wrapped up, Kyouko left the room on the heels of Keiko, keeping pace with her.
"So what's with that 'Anunnaki' thing, anyway?" asked Kyouko.
Keiko noted that Kyouko got the name right this time, despite appearing to mishear the first time around. Still, she smiled. "The ancient gods, born of the sky. They came into existence and formed a new world. They are the seven judges of hell that set the land aflame before the oncoming storm."
Kyouko raised her eyebrows at that. "OK," she said with a chuckle. "I can get behind that."
As they continued walking down the hall, Kyouko spoke up again. "So... Who are the seven judges supposed to be?"
"Ah, I hadn't quite figured that out yet," admitted Keiko.
"Is there a god of war? Cause I wanna be the god of war."
"I'll... keep that in mind."
"And food!"
"Right."
"And maybe cats."
"Hey! Cats are mine!"
Coincidentally, the "mother goddess" of the 7 major Sumerian gods, Ninhursag, has several other names, among which is "Mami".
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OK, a few things we know.
1) Tokyo Sensor Net is worthless to us right now. If we can't actually do anything to harm the teleporters, there's no point in wasting time tracking them down like that.
2) The backlog system is not going to work. If we cannot effectively bring down any teleporters, then we will never reach the point where we will be operating on the backlog.
3) We need some means of actually affecting the teleporters, and we need to get it operational ASAP. That means we need to be pushing resources into it immediately, if it's at all feasible.
So I'm proposing the following modifications to my plan:
1) Drop TSN entirely. Free up 0.5 Mami and 5.5 vets.
2) Drop the 2.0 vets from Review and Training. Given the current hunting status, there is nothing for them to review.
3) Go all in on Tandem Fusion research. Bump it up by 6 or 7 vets, putting us at 9 or 10, total. Possibly even have the CC group working on it in their downtime between raids.
3a) Keeping Mami in that because of her experience and skill at manipulating magic into new functions. She may provide extra insight that we need.
Primary spell of interest: Barrier+Teleport magic. Lock down the teleporters.
4) Keep the last couple meguca points in reserve, for a crash course in tandem fusion casting if we successfully research it.
In the meantime, Serena's team and the rest of our combat squad can work on moving up the western border. Since the teleporters all flee on sight, it basically gives her a free pass any any non-teleporters in the area. Only slight caveat on that is that if we kill all the non-teleporters, we can't use them as bait for the teleporters later on, if/when we get Fusion going. Not sure to what degree we care about that, since those baits would be killed soon thereafter anyway, making them of very limited use.
Edit: Note - this is a gamble. We have to not only figuring this Fusion trick out now, we are hoping for it before the end of the month is even up. However, given no other useful ideas to progress with, the only loss is not having a good showing for Nagoya, other than the non-teleporters.
1) Tokyo Sensor Net is worthless to us right now. If we can't actually do anything to harm the teleporters, there's no point in wasting time tracking them down like that.
2) The backlog system is not going to work. If we cannot effectively bring down any teleporters, then we will never reach the point where we will be operating on the backlog.
3) We need some means of actually affecting the teleporters, and we need to get it operational ASAP. That means we need to be pushing resources into it immediately, if it's at all feasible.
So I'm proposing the following modifications to my plan:
1) Drop TSN entirely. Free up 0.5 Mami and 5.5 vets.
2) Drop the 2.0 vets from Review and Training. Given the current hunting status, there is nothing for them to review.
3) Go all in on Tandem Fusion research. Bump it up by 6 or 7 vets, putting us at 9 or 10, total. Possibly even have the CC group working on it in their downtime between raids.
3a) Keeping Mami in that because of her experience and skill at manipulating magic into new functions. She may provide extra insight that we need.
Primary spell of interest: Barrier+Teleport magic. Lock down the teleporters.
4) Keep the last couple meguca points in reserve, for a crash course in tandem fusion casting if we successfully research it.
In the meantime, Serena's team and the rest of our combat squad can work on moving up the western border. Since the teleporters all flee on sight, it basically gives her a free pass any any non-teleporters in the area. Only slight caveat on that is that if we kill all the non-teleporters, we can't use them as bait for the teleporters later on, if/when we get Fusion going. Not sure to what degree we care about that, since those baits would be killed soon thereafter anyway, making them of very limited use.
Edit: Note - this is a gamble. We have to not only figuring this Fusion trick out now, we are hoping for it before the end of the month is even up. However, given no other useful ideas to progress with, the only loss is not having a good showing for Nagoya, other than the non-teleporters.
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Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
I think the sheer effectiveness of Serena, supported properly against risks of the beholder, will make a good enough showing to Nagoya that Tokyo's issues are finally about to be well in hand. All that has to happen now is to get the teleporters to die, and there's a chance that can be affected within the season.
Hmm haven't ever had to specify it before precisely. Combat teleportation of just a matter of meters is basically instant, on the level of flinching. Though limited in how many times you can do it, with Elites like Seto basically flitting about the battlefield as much as she wants unless the battle is unusually protracted.
Longer range for the individual teleporter is still pretty quick, on the order of seconds, though not something they can just keep doing repeatedly.
Longer range group teleports is longer, ten or twenty seconds, but also exhausting. A Veteran can teleport around 5 people 20 kilometers, but they'll need to recover for several minutes before they're fit to actually do anything. Your original case of Shinobu teleporting your group to Iwata over a couple jumps would have had her just shy of passing out, but she's the sort to keep going until she actually does pass out rather than complain first. An Elite could manage the same and be able to reasonably fight, though still somewhat drained.
While long enough to mark it as a full omake this managed to somehow be incredibly unsatisfying. Like me-tier. What was the plan?
Not yours at least.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
Probably whatever we decide on in the thread OOC.
Okay... been thinking about this over night, and this morning. First some responses and then I'll post my thoughts on what to do next.
First of all, your writing is not bad. I was expecting something at this level. It wouldn't really make sense to do a blow by blow detail at this point. It's not like the other mini-turns which were at the individual/squad level. Nor is it like the monthly turns. It's somewhere in between, and what you posted does the job very well.
In other words, stop beating yourself up over your writing, there is nothing wrong with it.
I'm assuming this meant research during previous turns for things that would help us now.
Yes, but they also swarm when outmatched singly, so based on the Nagoya experience, it seemed likely that the teleporters would try to team up on us.
Guess that isn't the case.
True, this is one possible approach.
That won't work. It the aura effect that warns them, and we can't conceal that. It'd be more like we'd have to have Serena untransformed, and then have her transform right as all our girls launch an assault on the teleporter.
Actually, the teleporting demons teleport onto Nagoya teams and attack them. It's not superior numbers, it's a superior force. Apparently 5+ elites don't usually chase them away, but Serena's aura warns them that there is no hope in fighting so they run.
It's the most obvious approach for research though.
Actually, you gave us a lot of mixed messages (which you even said you meant to do). I thought this was the most likely effect, but it wasn't certain. Now it is, which is good to know.
First of all, your writing is not bad. I was expecting something at this level. It wouldn't really make sense to do a blow by blow detail at this point. It's not like the other mini-turns which were at the individual/squad level. Nor is it like the monthly turns. It's somewhere in between, and what you posted does the job very well.
In other words, stop beating yourself up over your writing, there is nothing wrong with it.
I'm assuming this meant research during previous turns for things that would help us now.
Yes, but they also swarm when outmatched singly, so based on the Nagoya experience, it seemed likely that the teleporters would try to team up on us.
Guess that isn't the case.
True, this is one possible approach.
That won't work. It the aura effect that warns them, and we can't conceal that. It'd be more like we'd have to have Serena untransformed, and then have her transform right as all our girls launch an assault on the teleporter.
Actually, the teleporting demons teleport onto Nagoya teams and attack them. It's not superior numbers, it's a superior force. Apparently 5+ elites don't usually chase them away, but Serena's aura warns them that there is no hope in fighting so they run.
It's the most obvious approach for research though.
Actually, you gave us a lot of mixed messages (which you even said you meant to do). I thought this was the most likely effect, but it wasn't certain. Now it is, which is good to know.
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So... this is not quite as bad as I felt last night.
It's not a true Kobayashi Maru scenario.
Possible Options:
I'm leaning towards making an attack on the Eyeball, followed by Serena & Co. clearing Tokyo of non-teleporting demons while the rest of us work on solutions to lock down teleporters. Next turn, if we haven't figured out a better plan yet, we could approach it using the Live Bait plan, assuming only Teleporting demons are left.
Thoughts?
It's not a true Kobayashi Maru scenario.
Possible Options:
Serena is untransformed when we approach the demons Betty Rae is assigned to protect her.
Meanwhile, our vet group turtles up under three layered barriers and moves to attack one of the teleporting demons while inside her untransformed aura.
Sub-Option 1: Our vet group is stealthed during the approach, we ready our attack, tell Serena to transform and launch our all out attack as soon as well get hit with the transformed aura..
Sub-Option 2: Unstealthed, we wait for the demon to engage us, and depend on our barriers to protect us while we get ready for the full attack. Ask Serena to transform and launch our all out attack as soon as well get hit with the transformed aura.
Note that Sub-Option 2 can be implemented as the fall back to Sub-Option 1, thus it makes sense to use Sub-Option 1 always.
Benefits:
1: Possible we might kill the teleporters, catching them by surprise.
Risks:
1: Greater risk to our vets (being bait).
2: Greater risk to Serena (being attacked while transformed)
3: What if the teleporters still run away?
4: What if the Teleporters survive the big attack? They will escape, and probably won't be tricked twice.
5: Because of the limits of exposure to Serena's aura, taking into account travel time, the need to fight the eyeball, we probably can only do this about ~10 times. Which means at best we get only half of the teleporters.
Meanwhile, our vet group turtles up under three layered barriers and moves to attack one of the teleporting demons while inside her untransformed aura.
Sub-Option 1: Our vet group is stealthed during the approach, we ready our attack, tell Serena to transform and launch our all out attack as soon as well get hit with the transformed aura..
Sub-Option 2: Unstealthed, we wait for the demon to engage us, and depend on our barriers to protect us while we get ready for the full attack. Ask Serena to transform and launch our all out attack as soon as well get hit with the transformed aura.
Note that Sub-Option 2 can be implemented as the fall back to Sub-Option 1, thus it makes sense to use Sub-Option 1 always.
Benefits:
1: Possible we might kill the teleporters, catching them by surprise.
Risks:
1: Greater risk to our vets (being bait).
2: Greater risk to Serena (being attacked while transformed)
3: What if the teleporters still run away?
4: What if the Teleporters survive the big attack? They will escape, and probably won't be tricked twice.
5: Because of the limits of exposure to Serena's aura, taking into account travel time, the need to fight the eyeball, we probably can only do this about ~10 times. Which means at best we get only half of the teleporters.
This approach is basically what Kinematics is supporting (here)
We can probably refine it more, but basically it goes like this:
We switch to a half on half off work focus on Tokyo, and spend the resulting released resources on research to try and figure out how to stop teleporting demons from fleeing.
Benefits:
1: We can probably clear Tokyo of the non-teleporting Demons (~1/2 of the remaining demons)
2: We will demonstrate the effectiveness we promised Nagoya, and the rest of Tokyo. So we won't lose face. (Since we predicted 1 to 3 months to clear Tokyo, we'd be on pace for those goals).
3: 1/2 resources freed up to work on research
Risks/Costs:
1: Will the Eyeball take action? (Not a new risk, but have to remember)
2: Will the teleporting demons flee Tokyo? (Mop up will be more difficult than expected)
3: Teleporting demons do not flee Tokyo, but all the magical girls start too.
4: What if we fail to get Fusion Casting working? We only have a 15% chance at it at best.
5: A lot of our resources are still locked up supporting Serena.
We can probably refine it more, but basically it goes like this:
We switch to a half on half off work focus on Tokyo, and spend the resulting released resources on research to try and figure out how to stop teleporting demons from fleeing.
Benefits:
1: We can probably clear Tokyo of the non-teleporting Demons (~1/2 of the remaining demons)
2: We will demonstrate the effectiveness we promised Nagoya, and the rest of Tokyo. So we won't lose face. (Since we predicted 1 to 3 months to clear Tokyo, we'd be on pace for those goals).
3: 1/2 resources freed up to work on research
Risks/Costs:
1: Will the Eyeball take action? (Not a new risk, but have to remember)
2: Will the teleporting demons flee Tokyo? (Mop up will be more difficult than expected)
3: Teleporting demons do not flee Tokyo, but all the magical girls start too.
4: What if we fail to get Fusion Casting working? We only have a 15% chance at it at best.
5: A lot of our resources are still locked up supporting Serena.
An alternative is to stop providing Serena with a vet filled backup team. Serena & Co. would sweep up the edges of Tokyo by themselves, relying on the fact that teleporting demons flee from them so they won't be swarmed. Still provide teleporter and clairvoyant support.
Benefits:
1: We can probably clear Tokyo of the non-teleporting Demons (~1/2 of the remaining demons)
2: We will demonstrate the effectiveness we promised Nagoya, and the rest of Tokyo. So we won't lose face. (Since we predicted 1 to 3 months to clear Tokyo, we'd be on pace for those goals).
3: 3/4 resources freed up to work on research etc.
Risks/Costs:
1: Will the Eyeball take action? (Not a new risk, but have to remember - greater risk in this since Serena won't have her backup team.)
2: Will the teleporting demons flee Tokyo? (Mop up will be more difficult than expected)
3: Teleporting demons do not flee Tokyo, but all the magical girls start too.
4: What if we fail to get Fusion Casting working? We only have a 15% chance at it at best.
Benefits:
1: We can probably clear Tokyo of the non-teleporting Demons (~1/2 of the remaining demons)
2: We will demonstrate the effectiveness we promised Nagoya, and the rest of Tokyo. So we won't lose face. (Since we predicted 1 to 3 months to clear Tokyo, we'd be on pace for those goals).
3: 3/4 resources freed up to work on research etc.
Risks/Costs:
1: Will the Eyeball take action? (Not a new risk, but have to remember - greater risk in this since Serena won't have her backup team.)
2: Will the teleporting demons flee Tokyo? (Mop up will be more difficult than expected)
3: Teleporting demons do not flee Tokyo, but all the magical girls start too.
4: What if we fail to get Fusion Casting working? We only have a 15% chance at it at best.
The final plan I can think of is to just directly attack the Eyeball. Approach in a full group with Serena transformed, scaring away teleporting demons, and killing any non-teleporters in our path. Attack the eyeball and attempt to kill it (need to develop more detailed plan).
Benefits:
1: We get the riskiest and most important part of the fight over with.
2: We will demonstrate the effectiveness we promised Nagoya, and the rest of Tokyo. So we won't lose face. (Killing the eyeball would be a big symbol of eventual victory.)
3: Additional cleanup actions become safer
4: Teleport transport becomes safe
5: We can cease to support Serena in any additional clean up actions without the risk of her being overwhelmed, allowing 3/4 of our resources to be freed up to work on research etc.
Risks/Costs:
1: Will the Eyeball run away? (If it flees the aura as the rest of the teleporters do, then we can have Serena kill all the non-teleporters without support, without needing to worry about the eyeball)
2: Will the all demons flee Tokyo? (Mop up will be more difficult than expected)
3: What if we fail to get Fusion Casting working? We only have a 15% chance at it at best.
4: Deaths, loss of morale
Benefits:
1: We get the riskiest and most important part of the fight over with.
2: We will demonstrate the effectiveness we promised Nagoya, and the rest of Tokyo. So we won't lose face. (Killing the eyeball would be a big symbol of eventual victory.)
3: Additional cleanup actions become safer
4: Teleport transport becomes safe
5: We can cease to support Serena in any additional clean up actions without the risk of her being overwhelmed, allowing 3/4 of our resources to be freed up to work on research etc.
Risks/Costs:
1: Will the Eyeball run away? (If it flees the aura as the rest of the teleporters do, then we can have Serena kill all the non-teleporters without support, without needing to worry about the eyeball)
2: Will the all demons flee Tokyo? (Mop up will be more difficult than expected)
3: What if we fail to get Fusion Casting working? We only have a 15% chance at it at best.
4: Deaths, loss of morale
I'm leaning towards making an attack on the Eyeball, followed by Serena & Co. clearing Tokyo of non-teleporting demons while the rest of us work on solutions to lock down teleporters. Next turn, if we haven't figured out a better plan yet, we could approach it using the Live Bait plan, assuming only Teleporting demons are left.
Thoughts?
A wiki-walk tells me that Anunnaki are Sumerian gods, but @Kinematics is probably referring to the "angels of the forge" from the WoD RPG.
Sounds like a plan to me. Another potential issue is that breaking the demons' strength in Tokyo without clearing them is going to cause a mass-exodus from Tokyo once the girls there find out; I'm not sure what to do about that, except prepare for mass PvP combat as a wave of girls start to poach on our territory.
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Ah, sorry. The plan was basically the post after that, but I needed to detail my thoughts to be able to clearly lay everything out for the thread, and felt like putting it in an omake (yet) wasn't quite appropriate. I'll probably finish with presentation half of it later today (got stuff I should be doing right now...).
I'm pretty sure our earlier concerns about the eyeball teleporting away and healing (even if it doesn't run immediately on contact) are still there, and actually stronger now. I don't think we can claim a useful plan against the beholder until we have a way to lock down teleporting.
I'm hoping that overcommitting on the research angle means we get a significantly higher success chance. 9 meguca plus Mami plus all the idle time of the vet support team (could be described as up to 6 more meguca units) should allow us to run through a vast number of options rather quickly. With three (or maybe up to five) months' worth of people working on it, it could be a single higher-chance roll, or could be multiple smaller rolls, or whatever.
The name was based on the Sumerian gods, but the reason was a callback to Steins;Gate, where Kyouma's operation names were always based on fanciful Nordic mythology.
Yeah, this is going to complicate things. Not quite sure how to deal with it yet.
What are your thoughts on the eyeball?
Hopefully, the initial measure of progress will keep girls in Tokyo confused about whether fleeing or staying is the best course of action.
Of course they are still there. My point would be that once we get the eyeball to always run away from Serena, then even if we can't kill it we can still send Serena around to kill all non-teleporting demons and be pretty confident that the eyeball won't jump her.
Well, it seems to me we ought to get confirmation from the GM before we assume that.
@inverted_helix Can we place multiple teams working on Fusion Casting? And what would be the effect?
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
It'll port out as soon as it becomes clear it's losing. We need teleportation interdiction first...
@inverted_helix Does Nagoya have any girls with Teleportation interdiction? I don't care about ability to teleport in but do they have any girls that can shut down the ability to teleport out?
Edit: Like a girl who wished her parents wouldn't move and take her away from her friends, or something?
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First of all, how would we get them all to enter the eyeball's interdiction field?
Additionally, then we'd have to fight 20 class 3 demons plus the eyeball.
Not to mention we have never actually confirmed that the interdiction field affects teleporting demons.
Maybe we could try to research the eyeball interdiction field directly... except, you know, for the class 4 demon that would be busy trying to kill us while we do that.