- Location
- Laniakea
Mental backup for what? What's Utau need mental backup for?
Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
- Crossover
Mental backup for Amu: Basically first aid if something goes wrong and/or a power boost somehow if that's applicable?
Not like Amu is using her Charas going off the update, so...
Not like Amu is using her Charas going off the update, so...
- Location
- Laniakea
Decent chance that if something goes wrong with Amu absorbing it and that Shadow ends up going berserk in Amu's head, she's going to need all of her own Charas to get the thing under control.
Not gonna be Utau who needs to borrow any Charas if that happens - it's probably going to be Amu needing to borrow both of hers instead!
(I don't think either of them should borrow from each other, TBH. It costs 2 WP to load someone else's Chara and both of them currently only have 2 Charas if you don't count Dia, who is asleep - whoever borrows will leave the other one weaker.)
(Well, for Utau specifically it might only cost 1 WP, if the Dumpty Key gives her a discount like the Humpty Lock gives for Amu, but it would still leave Amu weaker. Not much benefit unless we needed to turn Utau into some super-unit with 3-4 Charas to pull off some big special move.)
Not gonna be Utau who needs to borrow any Charas if that happens - it's probably going to be Amu needing to borrow both of hers instead!
(I don't think either of them should borrow from each other, TBH. It costs 2 WP to load someone else's Chara and both of them currently only have 2 Charas if you don't count Dia, who is asleep - whoever borrows will leave the other one weaker.)
(Well, for Utau specifically it might only cost 1 WP, if the Dumpty Key gives her a discount like the Humpty Lock gives for Amu, but it would still leave Amu weaker. Not much benefit unless we needed to turn Utau into some super-unit with 3-4 Charas to pull off some big special move.)
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Amu manifesting her charas or loading other people's charas is mentally straining. That alone would be enough to explain the Integrity training - practicing with mental strain improves her ability to handle mental strain.
You're jumping to conclusions again. We have no evidence that Overgrowth "winning" has anything to do with the fog "bypassing" Amu's charas. Amu is inviting the fog in, and the fog isn't interested in the charas. It looks to me more like Overgrowth "winning" is simply putting Amu in a state of mind where she's not thinking clearly, where she's more ready to let weird phenomena into her mind than would be wise.
[X] Say Cheese
-[X] "When all you have is a hammer..." (Get more info first)
-[X] Ask Amu to wait a bit, take a photo of the not-fox and use Ragged Crossroads on the photo (spend WP at Utau's discretion).
-[X] Repeat with another photo with Amu inside as well, to get a idea of the possible outcomes of what happens next (or those of other approaches Amu might have tried)
-[X] Try to support Amu further based off whatever information the above gives, unless this is incredibly obviously a bad idea based off the possible outcomes seen.
Thoughts, while we wait for the writeups on Utau's other skills?
We are technically only voting for Utau's reaction here, or I might've tried to workshop in a Amu Stunt.
(Also, I have no idea what kind of outcomes are bad enough that after weighting them by probability it'd be a No Go sign anyway, what do you think?)
-[X] "When all you have is a hammer..." (Get more info first)
-[X] Ask Amu to wait a bit, take a photo of the not-fox and use Ragged Crossroads on the photo (spend WP at Utau's discretion).
-[X] Repeat with another photo with Amu inside as well, to get a idea of the possible outcomes of what happens next (or those of other approaches Amu might have tried)
-[X] Try to support Amu further based off whatever information the above gives, unless this is incredibly obviously a bad idea based off the possible outcomes seen.
Thoughts, while we wait for the writeups on Utau's other skills?
We are technically only voting for Utau's reaction here, or I might've tried to workshop in a Amu Stunt.
(Also, I have no idea what kind of outcomes are bad enough that after weighting them by probability it'd be a No Go sign anyway, what do you think?)
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I think the fox will probably run away before we can act on the information acquired - possibly before we can even take the first picture - but I do like the idea.
It was a few moments spent staring off into space (and a lot more recovering) the last time it was used, although fair about the fox running away.
Any ideas of how to make that not happen, short of doing it simultaneously while Amu is doing whatever her idea is?
(That, or ask Amu to get Miki to do a speed drawing/Illusion, but that one has higher DC that I'm not sure will pass)
- Location
- Laniakea
The fact that Amu manifesting her Charas is mentally/Integrity-straining that proves that having them inside, rather than out, is a key factor in Amu retaining her full Integrity. She needs them inside her, otherwise her sense of self destabilizes.
Not having them strains her Integrity = Charas are linked to her Integrity.
The word "bypass" was perhaps was a bad way to phrase it. It makes it sound like I'm proposing the fog did anything special.
I don't believe the fog did anything particularly special, I believe Amu's "base self" extruded or exposed itself (or grew, or ballooned, or jumped in front or whatever analogy you want to use) so much that her Charas weren't able to prevent it coming into contact with the fog.
This, obviously, was not some conscious decision by Amu. She didn't even know what she was feeling initially, until she decided to "check something". It had already started influencing her and made her start unwittingly floating, before she was "ready" to do anything, much less let it fully into her mind and "invite" it anywhere.
Utau did not have this problem.
Overgrowth failed against Integrity during her check. She was not "exposed" past the shield that her Integrity/Charas provide in the same way Amu was. She didn't start floating unconsciously.
- Location
- Laniakea
In Persona 5, the Phantom Thieves' usual method of getting a Shadow to sit down and "negotiate" is by surrounding it, pointing guns at it from all sides and yelling at it to freeze.
I don't know if this thing even has enough intelligence to do that, but then again we're also kind of lacking in the guns and numbers, since we never found the Scavengers' armory and Utau hasn't called Ami/Hikaru yet (or at least, if they've already decided to come, they've been delayed because they failed their rolls and got lost). So I guess it's sort of a moot point.
Ragged Crossroads is post-cognition, what you want is Precognition, which is Auroral Contemplations for Utau.
Though I don't know how much or what kind of pre-existing information she would need to be able to effectively use that skill.
Well, there's a reason I added the hammer/nails quote - I'm setting the anchor point to "now" and relying on Ragged Crossroads ability to go past the scenario point for better-than-literally-nothing information.
(Since the scenario where Kana got sniper'd was a few days off the decision point, while all we need here is a few minutes off our decision point)
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- Pronouns
- He
[x] "Trust me."
Amu is trying to break the normal progression of the chara system, manifesting charas when they would ordinarily be absorbed into her base mind. Breaking the normal progression is difficult. This is sufficient to explain the strain. The strain does not prove that the charas are an Integrity mechanism.
Utau has Iru out, at least, and it's fairly likely Eru is flying around somewhere. This does not appear to strain Utau's Integrity, and did not interfere with her roll. Other people who aren't trying to break the normal progression appear to have no Integrity problems with their charas, either.
So when you spoke about the fog bypassing Amu's charas, you weren't referring to the part where the fog was "tugging at the part of her mind that was Amu. Just Amu, Ran, Su and Dia not included". You were referring to the fog being able to influence her mind at all, and interpreting that as Amu's charas failing to shield her.
In that case, interpreting this as a chara-related phenomenon isn't enough to support your hypothesis about what charas do. The chara-based interpretation would need to be better than alternative interpretations. Ideally, it would have actual predictive power, accurately predicting events in ways that alternate interpretations do not.
In this case, Amu has more charas than Utau, and more of them are internalized. If Overgrowth beating Integrity means that Amu's soul got past a "shield" of charas, then Amu should have a better shield than Utau. Yet, they have the same Integrity, and made their Overgrowth rolls against the same difficulty.
The chara-based explanation doesn't explain events better than a hypothesis that doesn't involve charas as mental shields. It's possible charas fill such a role, but the available evidence doesn't justify treating it as the best hypothesis.
Ragged Crossroads explores counterfactual timelines. The idea is to make Amu wait a bit, while Utau uses Ragged Crossroads and hopes to hit a "what if I didn't stop her" timeline.
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Nero200
High Priest of Eito, Part Time Nyar.
It should probably be pointed out that Persona 5 is not a game Baughn has played, and using it's deeper mechanics as a guideline is probably as bad an idea as using Raildex's.
This isn't a palace, going by the fog its much closer to a Midnight Channel. And an unpopulated one at that.
In addition, as someone upthread pointed out, Amu is not a Wild Card. She's also not a Fool, from what we've seen.
Her soul/psyche/eso-self is not adapted to just randomly add shadows/persona to herself.
Every such aspect she has (Charas) is a deep and lasting bond that shapes her self.
Utau and her swapping Chara's ended up with Dia and the borderline dependency issues between them.
Adding a random shadow to that isn't going to be the quick shift and dance of a Wild Card taking on a new persona, it's going to change Amu until it fits. Integrity rolls might help lessen that, but the act of incorporating it is an act of changing the self.
For some people that might be a good thing (Using it to patch up Yui is why I want to bring it with us), but Amu is already struggling with figuring out who exactly she is, and is in this very scene having issues with keeping herself together. (Thank you Utau)
Lets listen to the expert we brought with us ("Amu, stop. Let's think this through. Back home." -Utau) instead of ignoring her and knocking ourselves out again.
This isn't a palace, going by the fog its much closer to a Midnight Channel. And an unpopulated one at that.
In addition, as someone upthread pointed out, Amu is not a Wild Card. She's also not a Fool, from what we've seen.
Her soul/psyche/eso-self is not adapted to just randomly add shadows/persona to herself.
Every such aspect she has (Charas) is a deep and lasting bond that shapes her self.
Utau and her swapping Chara's ended up with Dia and the borderline dependency issues between them.
Adding a random shadow to that isn't going to be the quick shift and dance of a Wild Card taking on a new persona, it's going to change Amu until it fits. Integrity rolls might help lessen that, but the act of incorporating it is an act of changing the self.
For some people that might be a good thing (Using it to patch up Yui is why I want to bring it with us), but Amu is already struggling with figuring out who exactly she is, and is in this very scene having issues with keeping herself together. (Thank you Utau)
Lets listen to the expert we brought with us ("Amu, stop. Let's think this through. Back home." -Utau) instead of ignoring her and knocking ourselves out again.
- Location
- Laniakea
If you believe that the Charas are normally supposed to be part of her base mind, I'm not sure why you would think they AREN'T an Integrity mechanism.
Integrity is the strength and cohesion of Amu mind/soul. So if the Charas are rightfully meant to be part of it, then they are, by definition, part of her Integrity mechanism. Whether other people can keep theirs out for shorter or longer doesn't really change that.
You forget - Overgrowth is an Essence-like Attribute. The magnitude of it is not the same for all characters. And we know it is tied to a Psionic's ability to use psychic powers.
Amu is canonically more powerful than Utau in Shugo Chara. I am willing to bet she has a higher Overgrowth rating than Utau's. Meaning even if Amu had a better "shield" than Utau, her soul is simply so much heavier, it eats up the difference. Though for this particular instance, if you assume Dia sleeping means she can't help, she only has Ran and Su (since Miki is now Big Miki) which is the same number of Charas as Utau has.
Personally, I still bet Amu has significantly higher Overgrowth and that the difference is being constantly compensated for by Dia, who is paying for it by needing to sleep all the time.
My "hypothesis" that Charas are restraints on Overgrowth comes from the quest synopsis:
Which makes it less a hypothesis and more us getting told outright. Charas are meant to be a fail-safe against burgeoning "psychic weight".
We know Overgrowth is instrinsically tied to Psionic powers as its Essence-equivalent, meaning it likely represents an individual's "psychic weight". Ergo, Charas are meant to be the fail-safe for Overgrowth.
The fact that Overgrowth was rolled against Integrity during those checks isn't the evidence that Charas are restraints for Overgrowth.
It's evidence that Charas are tied to Integrity.
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[x] "Trust me."
Amu's Dodge score is part of her base mind, but that's not an Integrity mechanism. Integrity is Amu's ability to resist mental pressure. Not every part of her mind is dedicated to that role.
They both rolled 3 dice for Overgrowth. Amu even rolled 2 dice for one of the Overgrowth rolls. The rolls don't support the idea that Amu has higher Overgrowth.
Adding the thing about Dia compensating for higher Overgrowth increases the complexity of your hypothesis, and additional complexity counts against a hypothesis. The more complexity a hypothesis needs to explain the data, the worse it is as an explanation.
They're "seemingly meant to be humanity's fail-safe", but that doesn't mean that the way this failsafe operates is by shoring up a person's Integrity.
Quoting an earlier QM post,
Charas are a "reasonably harmless expression of psionics", relative to other possibilities. Directing psionic power manifestation this way would be enough to explain the "fail-safe" thing, without adding the hypothesis of charas being an Integrity thing.
- Location
- Laniakea
Oh, now come on, trying to claim Amu's Dodge score is part of her "base mind" is heck of a stretch. You'd have better luck trying to make that argument using Lore, and that's still not something the informs her sense of self and identity in the way that Charas do, that Integrity is ostensibly meant to represent.
Funnily enough, I would be inclined to agree that it could largely just be to help people control their psychic powers..... except the QM gave us this little tidbit when discussion the artificiality of the Chara System:
.....It's meant to prevent something. Not just "cause" but ALSO "prevent".
Heavily implying that yes, Charas act as a restraining bolt of some kind in addition to being constructive.
EDIT: I realize that didn't address your point about how Charas being used to contest Overgrowth doesn't mean they are tied to Integrity, so I'll just remind you about what happened to the one character we know who does have Overgrowth, but couldn't form a Chara due to past circumstances - Saaya Yamabuki.
She ended up with severe "mental abrasions" from using her powers. Which from the description we got, looks a lot like the sort of thing that would result from a failed Integrity check. And if Charas are meant to help mitigate that sort of thing...... well, you know.
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[X] "Amu, stop. Let's think this through. Back home."
- [X] Try and bring the Fox with us. If this place is created by Yui, this probably belongs to her, and might help with her dependency on Kana.
[X] Say Cheese
-[X] "When all you have is a hammer..." (Get more info first)
-[X] Ask Amu to wait a bit, take a photo of the not-fox and use Ragged Crossroads on the photo (spend WP at Utau's discretion).
-[X] Repeat with another photo with Amu inside as well, to get a idea of the possible outcomes of what happens next (or those of other approaches Amu might have tried)
-[X] Try to support Amu further based off whatever information the above gives, unless this is incredibly obviously a bad idea based off the possible outcomes seen.
Balancing the vote tallies while discussion continues for now
- [X] Try and bring the Fox with us. If this place is created by Yui, this probably belongs to her, and might help with her dependency on Kana.
[X] Say Cheese
-[X] "When all you have is a hammer..." (Get more info first)
-[X] Ask Amu to wait a bit, take a photo of the not-fox and use Ragged Crossroads on the photo (spend WP at Utau's discretion).
-[X] Repeat with another photo with Amu inside as well, to get a idea of the possible outcomes of what happens next (or those of other approaches Amu might have tried)
-[X] Try to support Amu further based off whatever information the above gives, unless this is incredibly obviously a bad idea based off the possible outcomes seen.
Balancing the vote tallies while discussion continues for now
Variant skills (Utau)
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Variant skills (Utau)
Ragged Crossroads: Every regret is a threshold; and every threshold can be crossed in both directions. A skolekosophist knows that no threshold need remain inviolate.
Ragged Crossroads, at its simplest, allows Utau to connect through an emotionally charged 'anchor' to an event in the past. She can then peek at alternate outcomes distinct from what actually happened, but her point of view is limited to what her other psionic skills would ordinarily allow her, plus a gestalt impression of the events that led to the anchor's creation. It allows her to see some of the more probable timelines, but not a full overview.
The number of viewable timelines appears to depend on how inevitable the events leading up to the anchor's creation were. Used on an anchor whose creation was a true fluke, Utau is likely to get nothing; there are no alternate outcomes, as it exists in only a single timeline.
The base difficulty is 1, but increases if the anchor wasn't ended at a precise time, or if the anchor isn't an unchanging object, or if demons existed in the immediate past of its creation, or at increasing range from the anchor—temporal or spatial—or if affected parties are or were protected from the effect.
Pyroglyphics: One script that all the world must read, even the blind, and it is written in flames.' Matters of fireworks and their kin - lights, colours, infernal detonations.
Utau has a two-way empathic sense. She can read your feelings, and you will feel hers; but she isn't telepathically capable, and can only achieve true mind-speech with Amu, Ami or Miki, who do most of the work. She is, however, adept at holding up her side of the conversation with emotional projections; which has become nearly a language.
Pyroglyphics represents Utau's realisation that the 'nearly' can be lost. Done in the right way—with the right props, reading the reactions of her audience and giving a show that is like nothing in the world, Utau can project not just her emotions, but also her thoughts. Maybe this is not a language. Maybe it is the deepest, most fundamental language of all. Maybe Utau's stage show can defeat even a demon's insanity, if it's taken far enough.
It also could be useful to overwhelm and confuse, as the average target will not realise their emotions and thoughts aren't their own.
Lightsmithing: Break a window. What have you made? A way? A new light? A weapon?
A paradox of Illumination: light reveals, light blinds.
Utau has made herself a lighthouse. This skill does not permit her to make physical light, but mental. Her mind can reach out, showing anyone the way to what they seek—or on the flip side, fill the air with so much din and sparks that none but the most capable psionics can see anything at all. In some cases, simply being able to see is enough to find paths that would not otherwise exist.
Concretely, this skill can add to any information-seeking psionic roll for anyone Utau seeks to help, including herself, with effectiveness depending on physical distance from Utau. It cannot normally assist with precog or postcog, but can cancel penalties in some cases. She can also place herself in opposition, using it to dazzle and blind; this is effective against any enemy that depends on any form of psychic senses. Lastly, it can be used in conjunction with Investigation in cognitive spaces.
Using this skill also broadcasts Utau's emotional state.
Strings & Songs: The harmonies of the lower skies are here reproduced.
Song is the second language of humanity, and music is the first. This is an esoteric skill. It can be added to a Performance roll based on music, and will reveal the music inherent to reality itself—subject to Utau's will, always in a fitting way for her performance—but its primary use is to reduce or eliminate disharmony resulting from the use of magic. In practice, when Utau is allowed, this subtracts from the external penalty caused by using magic in K-physics spaces. It does not normally apply to psionics, which already has mechanisms for this.
As Utau herself is unaware of this use case, primarily she uses it to amuse herself.
Auroral contemplations: 'To know what will pass in what has passed.' To see endings and beginnings, passages and transitions, in the same mode as dawn and sunset.
The flip side of Ragged Crossroads, and in many ways the same skill. Auroral Contemplations allows Utau to recognise when she is writing out a story that was already written. Less poetically, it gives her deja vu—it's an unreliable form of precog which in rare circumstances gives her glimpses of the potential outcomes from an action she is about to take, but which at all times lets her know if that action is an important point of divergence.
At one dot, however, the chance of this triggering is only 50%. You cannot invoke this skill; I'll roll the dice behind the scenes, as even telling you when it's checked is itself a source of information.
For what it's worth, she has that feeling now. If she levels it up, she'll trust it more.
Ragged Crossroads: Every regret is a threshold; and every threshold can be crossed in both directions. A skolekosophist knows that no threshold need remain inviolate.
Ragged Crossroads, at its simplest, allows Utau to connect through an emotionally charged 'anchor' to an event in the past. She can then peek at alternate outcomes distinct from what actually happened, but her point of view is limited to what her other psionic skills would ordinarily allow her, plus a gestalt impression of the events that led to the anchor's creation. It allows her to see some of the more probable timelines, but not a full overview.
The number of viewable timelines appears to depend on how inevitable the events leading up to the anchor's creation were. Used on an anchor whose creation was a true fluke, Utau is likely to get nothing; there are no alternate outcomes, as it exists in only a single timeline.
The base difficulty is 1, but increases if the anchor wasn't ended at a precise time, or if the anchor isn't an unchanging object, or if demons existed in the immediate past of its creation, or at increasing range from the anchor—temporal or spatial—or if affected parties are or were protected from the effect.
Pyroglyphics: One script that all the world must read, even the blind, and it is written in flames.' Matters of fireworks and their kin - lights, colours, infernal detonations.
Utau has a two-way empathic sense. She can read your feelings, and you will feel hers; but she isn't telepathically capable, and can only achieve true mind-speech with Amu, Ami or Miki, who do most of the work. She is, however, adept at holding up her side of the conversation with emotional projections; which has become nearly a language.
Pyroglyphics represents Utau's realisation that the 'nearly' can be lost. Done in the right way—with the right props, reading the reactions of her audience and giving a show that is like nothing in the world, Utau can project not just her emotions, but also her thoughts. Maybe this is not a language. Maybe it is the deepest, most fundamental language of all. Maybe Utau's stage show can defeat even a demon's insanity, if it's taken far enough.
It also could be useful to overwhelm and confuse, as the average target will not realise their emotions and thoughts aren't their own.
Lightsmithing: Break a window. What have you made? A way? A new light? A weapon?
A paradox of Illumination: light reveals, light blinds.
Utau has made herself a lighthouse. This skill does not permit her to make physical light, but mental. Her mind can reach out, showing anyone the way to what they seek—or on the flip side, fill the air with so much din and sparks that none but the most capable psionics can see anything at all. In some cases, simply being able to see is enough to find paths that would not otherwise exist.
Concretely, this skill can add to any information-seeking psionic roll for anyone Utau seeks to help, including herself, with effectiveness depending on physical distance from Utau. It cannot normally assist with precog or postcog, but can cancel penalties in some cases. She can also place herself in opposition, using it to dazzle and blind; this is effective against any enemy that depends on any form of psychic senses. Lastly, it can be used in conjunction with Investigation in cognitive spaces.
Using this skill also broadcasts Utau's emotional state.
Strings & Songs: The harmonies of the lower skies are here reproduced.
Song is the second language of humanity, and music is the first. This is an esoteric skill. It can be added to a Performance roll based on music, and will reveal the music inherent to reality itself—subject to Utau's will, always in a fitting way for her performance—but its primary use is to reduce or eliminate disharmony resulting from the use of magic. In practice, when Utau is allowed, this subtracts from the external penalty caused by using magic in K-physics spaces. It does not normally apply to psionics, which already has mechanisms for this.
As Utau herself is unaware of this use case, primarily she uses it to amuse herself.
Auroral contemplations: 'To know what will pass in what has passed.' To see endings and beginnings, passages and transitions, in the same mode as dawn and sunset.
The flip side of Ragged Crossroads, and in many ways the same skill. Auroral Contemplations allows Utau to recognise when she is writing out a story that was already written. Less poetically, it gives her deja vu—it's an unreliable form of precog which in rare circumstances gives her glimpses of the potential outcomes from an action she is about to take, but which at all times lets her know if that action is an important point of divergence.
At one dot, however, the chance of this triggering is only 50%. You cannot invoke this skill; I'll roll the dice behind the scenes, as even telling you when it's checked is itself a source of information.
For what it's worth, she has that feeling now. If she levels it up, she'll trust it more.
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*Paranoia increases*
Does the current moment count, for the purposes of her using RC on this? (And does Midori have a camera?)
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
She has her cellphone. Which has a camera, but that would add a point to the difficulty due to the lack of personal involvement—or dilution, perhaps. For what it's worth, a regular camera would do the same. It's the personal investment and time spent on the drawings that made them ideal anchors.
Or you could use it with the fox as an anchor, and get a one-point penalty for that. It adds up to difficulty 2 either way.
However, Ragged Crossroads is incapable of looking into the future. You would need to wait until Amu could have already done what she wants to do.
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It's not like she's dodging with someone else's brain. Perhaps we're using "base" differently, but if so, Integrity isn't necessarily part of her "base" mind in the way you seem to be using the word. It's a learned skill, not a core part of someone's self-identity. It can protect a person's core identity, but it's not usually part of a person's core identity.
Other, less safe manifestations of power? Considering the QM post I quoted, I figured that was pretty likely. We don't know, though, and we don't have enough information to come to any solid conclusions.
Saaya got grade 5 mental abrasion because she directed her own destruction powers toward her own mind, for months, with an extremely fierce burst of that at the end to fight the rift.
So Amu and Utau do have the same Overgrowth, then. And Miki just has 1? Looks like Overgrowth isn't quite a hard cap on psi skills - Miki has some 2s. Miki's situation is pretty weird, though.
I wonder if there's any useful information embedded in "the music inherent to reality itself". Sounds like there should be.
So asking Amu to wait until Amu could've hypothetically done it works (at the risk of the fox wandering off or other time sensitive things going bad)?
Hm.. I think using RC on the fox anyway (DC 2) + Lightsmithing buff to info gathering and/or stunt buff to Integrity through white noise provision is the best I can do?
