Understandable, no issue here--was thinking that you just wanted a bit of a break after finishing Canto 5. But if the depression's hitting ya then hope it gets better soon.
All Aboard The Magic Hellbus! Let's Play Limbus Company
- Thread starter ZerbanDaGreat
- Start date
- Let's Play
drearyArchon
Chaos Lord Chaos
- Location
- The Floor of Social Sciences
Maybe it would be worthwhile to just skip ahead to the next Canto? The Intervallos are fun, but the fact that there's two of them might make it feel hard to start.
There's some important bits in both Intervallos despite being predominantly side quests, but nothing as important to Canto VI as Ishmael's crashout.
There's some important bits in both Intervallos despite being predominantly side quests, but nothing as important to Canto VI as Ishmael's crashout.
Intervallo III-1: Miracle In District 20 - All I Want For Christmas Is Penis Music
New
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Alright I think it's time to admit that Intervallos are my kryptonite. They're just short enough that they're not worthwhile to split into two updates, but just long enough that it's a pain in the ass to chop them down and squish them into one, and sometimes - especially today - they're lighter fare that gives me much less to really dig into analysis-wise. I remember Hell's Chicken gave me some issues before, but this one has been the bane of my fucking existence in how difficult it's been to work myself up to tackle it. Was some of that burnout because of churning through Canto V in a manic daze for Ishmael's sake? Maybe! But being unable to shake the perception of the coming two Intervallos being hurdles to overcome on my way to Canto VI hasn't helped either. Going forward all I can promise is that I'll continue to do my best, because I am damn excited to continue this close reread of Limbus for how satisfying its highest highs have been. Thank you all for your patience, and let's try to have some fun today.
So how are the Sinners coping with the long trip back to land from the Great Lake? Well the first chapter of this Intervallo is titled Tedium, which is about how I felt the past few weeks trying to recharge and pick this thread back up.
Narration: As our voyage on the Great Lake extends, the list of things to keep the Sinners entertained grows ever-smaller. In a way, it sounds like a serious problem, but...
"WE GOT ABYSMAL DOGSHIT"
Every time I revisit this Intervallo I'm floored that it opens with this exchange straight away, instant punchline.
Anyway, the Sinners are bored. Bored the way that the fanbase is during the droughts between content drops, where all you really got to do every day is Luxcavation and Mirror Dungeon. Bored enough that Rodion is going stir-crazy, having asked the bus no less than 28 times (Meursault counted, because of course he did) if they had any ideas for some fun - and honestly mood, I've fuckin been there some days. Gregor reminds the group that they also still have the pet seagull that Ryoshu was seen training in the Pass On CG at the end of Canto V, which in typical Gregor Must Suffer fashion ended up becoming his sole responsibility once the other Sinners all got bored of having a pet and stopped taking care of it.
Ishmael: "Yeah... we're going to have to let the seagull go once we're out of the Great Lake anyway. Why'd you even let yourself get attached to it?"
Gregor: "Just... look at her. The way she looks at you... those woeful eyes..."
Ishmael: "What, your average seagull eyes?"
Narration: It was abundantly clear that the Sinners were starting to slowly expire from sheer boredom.
As they scan the various suffering Sinners, Dante's gaze alights on Heathcliff in particular where he sits seemingly unaffected by the cabin fever gripping the others. Indeed he's neither overflowing with pent-up frustration nor calm and collected, but a secret third thing: anxious. The source of that anxiety makes itself known as Heathcliff clears his throat and speaks up.
By hailing the Guide.
VINEBOOM
VINEBOOM
"😐" VINEBOOM
VINEBOOM
Look, look! Even Vergilius is so surprised he can't even bring himself to be annoyed.
Ishmael: "Oh... Heathcliff! Have you gone insane! Did you finally snap?"
Rodion: "This must be the side effect of the 'consultations'! Maybe we can call this 'Sense of Self-Preservation Loss Syndrome' or something like that."
Dante: <H-Heathcliff...>
Heathcliff: "Shut your traps! I ain't mad. And my sense of self-preservation is just fine."
Bro is straight-up amused.
Vergilius: "I rarely found myself surprised in this series of misadventures so far... but this is one of those rare occasions. Speak. What is your business?"
Tiny sidebar, insane thing for him to say when Vergilius is repeatedly implied to have a mild to moderate precognitive ability through his attunement to 'the flow'. You gotta wake up real early in the day to get this reaction out of him.
Heathcliff: "It's the, uh."
Heathcliff: "Our next destination is T Corp, innit?"
Vergilius: "Patience, Heathcliff. Though that seems to be a virtue that most of you lack... if everything goes according to the flow, you'll make it to your 'appointment' on time."
Heathcliff: "That's not... What else could possibly be more important than the appoin- wait."
Heathcliff, having clearly hoped that his Mystery Appointment in T Corp and the busboat sailing towards T Corp were unrelated, swiftly turns to the rest of the gang to explain his predicament in slightly more detail: Vergilius personally handed him 'something' in their last consultation, and now he knows he needs to prep himself for a fancy-dress occasion coming up sometime after they make landfall, so he's antsy to get started on prep right away.
Gregor, obviously, points out that they can't actually do anything with this information while they're out in the ass-end of nowhere on a boat. Rodion promises to help Heath out once they make landfall, to which he protests that they still have no idea how long that'll be...
Faust: "Dante, we have reached the end of the scheduled work period for the Sinners."
Dante: <Huh? O-oh, yeah... I hereby confirm today's close of business for the Sinners...>
... Dante reflexively gives the clock-out speech, causing the Sinners to fuck off en masse mid-conversation. Even Charon and Vergilius hightail it out of there without another word.
Dante: <S-sorry... but Gregor isn't completely wrong, is he...?>
Heathcliff: "Can't you even mince words at this point!? Augh..."
Despite his usual threat display, Heathcliff instantly crumbles at this rejoinder, lapsing into crestfallen silence. He's too worried about his appointment in T-Corp to even focus on threatening people correctly, leaving Dante awkwardly standing around with no idea what to say, all alone with Heathcliff.
Narration: Wait.
Narration: There was another.
Don Quixote: "Sir Heathcliff!"
Heathcliff: "Huh? What are you doing out here, girl? Run along, you. Go gush about the high-and-mighty Fixers of T Corp or something."
Don Quixote: "Ahm, ahm. I shall have plenty of time for that later. Yet... thou shall do well to treat me well, Sir Heathcliff!"
Heathcliff: "What, you little-"
Don Quixote: "HOOOOOOOOOLD! Allow me to finish! Manager Esquire. Sir Heathcliff. Come hither. Hush, hush!"
She creeps over to Charon's usual seat at the front of the bus, beckoning for Heathcliff and Dante to follow, for Don Quixote has conceived of an idea most ingenious for how to solve Heathcliff's problem even trapped as they are on the high seas. She tells the tale of the Red Sack, a legendary Devyat Association Fixer (and presumably previous holder of Vergilius' slot among the Colour Fixers as Heathcliff assumes but Don Quixote doesn't bother to clarify) who would ferry gifts to all the good little boys and girls of the City at Christmastime with his trusty sidekick Reindeer-Man at his side. It's all over Fixers Monthly every winter, after all! Heathcliff, predictably, has no idea what the fuck she's talking about.
Dante: <...>
Narration: I knocked on my ticking clock head. I didn't really feel the need to spell it out for her.
Her "D:" face is instant comedy, very strong 'I'M JUST A WIDDLE GOBWIN' vibes.
Don Quixote: "A-anyhow! What matters to thee, Sir Heathcliff, is that thou endeavoureth to make myself more presentable than anyone else for this occasion, is it not!?"
Heathcliff: "Finally getting to the point, eh? Go on."
Don Quixote: "Marry, good sir, a costume most befitting that occasion would be those of the Red Sack and his sidekick, Reindeer-Man!!!"
Heathcliff. Needs to go to a fancy dress party. In London. And Don Quixote. Wants to send him there. Dressed as fucking Santa Claus.
I must stress that while this event originally ran in the Christmas season of 2023, Christmas is also a thing that happens at the normal time in the world of Limbus Company, and this Intervallo takes place in August. Don is just being fucking insane, but what else is new?
Heathcliff immediately senses that this is just her second go at trying to convince him to do Fixer Cosplay with her (and yes she says "COSPRAY" now that the Intervallo is voiced it's very good) after her initial attempt to do a pair costume of the Fixers del Atardecer Ardiente (Fixers of the Fiery Sunset, don't know if that references anything literary) fell through. Once again he's too tired to even properly threaten her, halfheartedly promising to dispense five bonks around the head and shoulders at a later date, but Don rallies for another charge!
Don Quixote: "... prithee, share thy thoughts of the Fixers that we have laid our eyes upon thus far."
Heathcliff: "What?"
Don Quixote: "Embarrassing, were they? Remember! Were they not fancy and impeccably dressed? Close not thy eyes and heart. Speak!"
Heathcliff: "Absolutely embarrassing sods, yeah. That spandex bloke from K Corp? Looked like he leaped right out of a circus."
Don Quixote: "NAAAYYY! Lord Siegfried was not embarrassing! I say that his outfit was rather dashing, wouldst thou not agree? Allow me to regale thee with information concering the materials of its fabric, so that thy understanding-"
Don has neither ADHD nor autism but the secret combo pack where they fuse together and magnify each other like item synergies in a roguelike. I'm allowed to say that because she's just like me fr, and also my husband.
Regardless, Don Quixote is able to drag herself back on track long enough to concede that Siegfried and his Silver-Age-chic spandex bodysuit is something of an outlier, and that on the whole successful high-grade Fixers dress pretty well seeing as they're well-paid hotshot contractors in a market as volatile as the City. Heathcliff reluctantly concedes her point, as he himself has no leg to stand on regarding what is or isn't appropriately posh attire, but doesn't understand what that has to do with finding said posh togs in the middle of the ocean. To this, Don has an answer! It all comes back to the Backdoor volatility alarm that sounded offscreen the previous day, which at the time Faust had said was none of their concern. Yet while all and sundry were busy heading back to their rooms for the day...
Check out all the freaky lil plushies lying around, Charon's sure made herself at home.
Dante: <So you took a peep at the screen.>
Heathcliff: "You know how to read those complex symbols?"
Don Quixote: "Nay, I myself had little hope of recognising them. Yet, when I looked into them... amongst the symbols on that device were a pair of rather particular symbols I could very easily tell apart from the others! Forsooth, 'twere symbols of the Red Sack and the Reindeer-Man! And next to them was a symbol indicating posh outfits!"
I like how you can see 'posh outfits' and 'Red Sack' (aka the santa-hat emoji) but there is genuinely nothing that looks like a reindeer anywhere on that screen, just snowmen and snowflakes. I don't know if this is an art department miscommunication or if Don's delusional enough to think the obvious snowmen are definitely reindeer (or just lying because she wants to investigate the fun mystery). Dante and Heathcliff both instantly think, correctly, that this is stupid and there's no way that Don's read of the symbols is correct, but Don will not be deterred.
Maybe I'm meme-poisoned but I can't fuckin' handle this frame. "riddle me this, manager esquire. why did the lady dulcinea leave me?"
Don Quixote reveals that she's done much worse than spy on the screen at the helm - she's noticed that oftentimes, the rooms past the Backdoor start displaying symbols, symbols which correspond to the ones that appear on the screen.
Dante: <... Don Quixote, you didn't...!>
Don Quixote: " 'Tis my nature as an adventurer, Manager Esquire! Mine inability to quell the burning adventurous spirit. I prostate before thee!"
Don Quixote: "Know that I have taken the sneakiest of peeks. Marry, twas naught too foolhardy! I have only taken a small peek! And if I were to regale thee that what I witnessed from within, that all my deductions and predictions have been proven true... could thee find within thyself compassion to spare mine soul?"
Heathcliff: "You absolute muppet, why in the bloody hell do you keep doing what everyone tells you not to?"
Dante: <Right, Heathcliff. I just don't understand why some people keep doing things that everyone tells them not to.>
TOLD
Dante ruminates a while longer on the Heathcliff backrooms incident, about how they almost lost Heathcliff for good in the process - but this time is a little different, admittedly. This time they know what's beyond the door they're after (allegedly), which makes all the difference in the world. Less reassuringly, when Dante asks if Don's suggesting calling the team together to explore the Mystery Place beyond the Backdoor she quickly clarifies that just the three of them together should be more than fine because trios are the best kind of adventuring party.
Dante: <... You're just scared of the 'consultation' aren't you?>
Don Quixote they can never make me hate you.
Don continues to exist that it's fine, there won't be a problem, all they have to do is duck in and take the fancy clothes for Heathcliff, and Dante sees through her like a window. Whether she's just bored and jumping the chance to have an adventure, or still obsessed with doing cosplay, Don is doing this for herself more than she's doing it for Heathcliff. But...
... Dante can't forget how bad things got with Ishmael. How they let her spiral because they were too blind to see how bad things were getting and how fast. They see this as a chance to show Heathcliff that they're on his side and stop things from ever reaching the point they did with Ishmael, and jump on it.
Dante: <... fine. But we're turning around at the first sign of danger.>
Heathcliff: "Seriously...?"
Dante: <Come on. You were willing to do it if it meant that you could pick up some clothes.>
Heathcliff: "... well, I suppose we'll be okay as long as Clockhead's with us."
Don tries to set up a secret knock code for the co-conspirators, but Heathcliff just tells her to fuck off to bed, and we jump ahead into the dead of night once the trio have reconvened outside Dante's office. To the extreme and entirely justified alarm of the other two Don immediately leads them past the velvet rope and into the dangerous part of the corridor, where Heathcliff was almost lost forever a few months ago. And yet, despite the danger, once they follow Don's directions, the wind up... exactly where she said they would.
Small sidebar: I tracked down and read all of Leviathan somewhere in between now and last time we talked about the Backdoor's corridor, or rather its Corridor (aka the exact joke Ryoshu was making when she called Gregor a fool for not understanding the difference). I now properly know what Faust was alluding to in her closing lines of the Heathcliff Retrieval Minisode, and Don in her complete ignorance was able to fulfill the terms Faust cryptically laid out for Dante here - one cannot go anywhere in a Corridor without first knowing the destination, or else they'll be lost in the fucking Backrooms like Heathcliff was. Because Don already knew where the door was, Dante and Heathcliff could follow her safely (technically telling them alone was enough because 'knowing the way' is kind of a conceptual requirement), and presumably peeking at the symbols on the screen at the helm is what gave Don the directions/mental passkey to find the door in the first place.
Does this mean I'll be talking more about Leviathan later? Wouldn't you like to know-
Dante: <Huh? H-hold on!>
And with that Heathcliff barges straight through the door, dragging Don and Dante in his wake.
Straight into a... toy factory.
Narration: This place was decorated with numerous Christmas-themed ornaments. Warm, cozy lighting reflected off the wooden flooring, and a maze of conveyor belts were installed all over the place. This place is...
Dante: <... a factory?>
Don Quixote: "Quite!"
The return of Foghorn Don from Canto V
The assembled small figures freeze where they are, then turn at the sound of Don's shout.
Don Quixote: "Give me but a moment. I have already parlayed with these fellows!"
Angery Dante, a rare and coveted sighting in the wild.
One of the larger of the creatures scurries over, and cheerily strikes up a conversation with the trio.
This vocal tic of constantly adding '-ome' to words like a forced rhyme with 'gnome' shared by all the Gnomes is rendered in the voicelines as a '-shoom' or '-shume', which I have to assume is a pun that's at least similar in nature, but I lack the knowledge of Korean to figure out exactly how it works so I invite anyone more knowledgeable than me to help the thread out.
???: "And just as you did before... poof! Appearing from the most unexpected places again-ome!!"
Dante: <Who is this, Don Quixote?>
Don Quixote: "Hm! The one who shall grant us the wonderful gifts indeed!"
Here the Ripped As Fuck gnome rubs his hands together "or what I assumed to be hands", which is another minor art-writing miscommunication because this gnome clearly does have hands, big meaty grabbers too, but all the other gnomes basically have flippers or cartoon nubbins for limbs.
???: "Pleased to make your acquaintance-ome! You must be Lady Don Quixote's friend-omes!"
Dodoru: "My g'name is Dodoru. A gnome who works at this gift factory-ome. And why, of course, I make gifts here-ome."
Dante: <A gnome...?>
Don Quixote: "Indeed, a gnome!"
Narration: ... was that supposed to be obvious?
Patented 'nobody tells Dante shit and just expects them to figure it out because they all forgot they have amnesia' momento. Dante quickly asks for clarification that 'gnome' is not a subset of human nobody told them about, to which Don and Dodoru readily agree. This makes Heathcliff very curious, of course, because he thought nonhumans weren't allowed in the City - Dante backs him up by confirming they're neither Abnormalities nor Distortions either, but Dodoru isn't listening to that part.
So how are the Sinners coping with the long trip back to land from the Great Lake? Well the first chapter of this Intervallo is titled Tedium, which is about how I felt the past few weeks trying to recharge and pick this thread back up.
Narration: As our voyage on the Great Lake extends, the list of things to keep the Sinners entertained grows ever-smaller. In a way, it sounds like a serious problem, but...
"WE GOT ABYSMAL DOGSHIT"
Every time I revisit this Intervallo I'm floored that it opens with this exchange straight away, instant punchline.
Anyway, the Sinners are bored. Bored the way that the fanbase is during the droughts between content drops, where all you really got to do every day is Luxcavation and Mirror Dungeon. Bored enough that Rodion is going stir-crazy, having asked the bus no less than 28 times (Meursault counted, because of course he did) if they had any ideas for some fun - and honestly mood, I've fuckin been there some days. Gregor reminds the group that they also still have the pet seagull that Ryoshu was seen training in the Pass On CG at the end of Canto V, which in typical Gregor Must Suffer fashion ended up becoming his sole responsibility once the other Sinners all got bored of having a pet and stopped taking care of it.
Ishmael: "Yeah... we're going to have to let the seagull go once we're out of the Great Lake anyway. Why'd you even let yourself get attached to it?"
Gregor: "Just... look at her. The way she looks at you... those woeful eyes..."
Ishmael: "What, your average seagull eyes?"
Narration: It was abundantly clear that the Sinners were starting to slowly expire from sheer boredom.
As they scan the various suffering Sinners, Dante's gaze alights on Heathcliff in particular where he sits seemingly unaffected by the cabin fever gripping the others. Indeed he's neither overflowing with pent-up frustration nor calm and collected, but a secret third thing: anxious. The source of that anxiety makes itself known as Heathcliff clears his throat and speaks up.
By hailing the Guide.
VINEBOOM
VINEBOOM
"😐" VINEBOOM
VINEBOOM
Look, look! Even Vergilius is so surprised he can't even bring himself to be annoyed.
Ishmael: "Oh... Heathcliff! Have you gone insane! Did you finally snap?"
Rodion: "This must be the side effect of the 'consultations'! Maybe we can call this 'Sense of Self-Preservation Loss Syndrome' or something like that."
Dante: <H-Heathcliff...>
Heathcliff: "Shut your traps! I ain't mad. And my sense of self-preservation is just fine."
Bro is straight-up amused.
Vergilius: "I rarely found myself surprised in this series of misadventures so far... but this is one of those rare occasions. Speak. What is your business?"
Tiny sidebar, insane thing for him to say when Vergilius is repeatedly implied to have a mild to moderate precognitive ability through his attunement to 'the flow'. You gotta wake up real early in the day to get this reaction out of him.
Heathcliff: "It's the, uh."
Heathcliff: "Our next destination is T Corp, innit?"
Vergilius: "Patience, Heathcliff. Though that seems to be a virtue that most of you lack... if everything goes according to the flow, you'll make it to your 'appointment' on time."
Heathcliff: "That's not... What else could possibly be more important than the appoin- wait."
Heathcliff, having clearly hoped that his Mystery Appointment in T Corp and the busboat sailing towards T Corp were unrelated, swiftly turns to the rest of the gang to explain his predicament in slightly more detail: Vergilius personally handed him 'something' in their last consultation, and now he knows he needs to prep himself for a fancy-dress occasion coming up sometime after they make landfall, so he's antsy to get started on prep right away.
Gregor, obviously, points out that they can't actually do anything with this information while they're out in the ass-end of nowhere on a boat. Rodion promises to help Heath out once they make landfall, to which he protests that they still have no idea how long that'll be...
Faust: "Dante, we have reached the end of the scheduled work period for the Sinners."
Dante: <Huh? O-oh, yeah... I hereby confirm today's close of business for the Sinners...>
... Dante reflexively gives the clock-out speech, causing the Sinners to fuck off en masse mid-conversation. Even Charon and Vergilius hightail it out of there without another word.
Dante: <S-sorry... but Gregor isn't completely wrong, is he...?>
Heathcliff: "Can't you even mince words at this point!? Augh..."
Despite his usual threat display, Heathcliff instantly crumbles at this rejoinder, lapsing into crestfallen silence. He's too worried about his appointment in T-Corp to even focus on threatening people correctly, leaving Dante awkwardly standing around with no idea what to say, all alone with Heathcliff.
Narration: Wait.
Narration: There was another.
Don Quixote: "Sir Heathcliff!"
Heathcliff: "Huh? What are you doing out here, girl? Run along, you. Go gush about the high-and-mighty Fixers of T Corp or something."
Don Quixote: "Ahm, ahm. I shall have plenty of time for that later. Yet... thou shall do well to treat me well, Sir Heathcliff!"
Heathcliff: "What, you little-"
Don Quixote: "HOOOOOOOOOLD! Allow me to finish! Manager Esquire. Sir Heathcliff. Come hither. Hush, hush!"
She creeps over to Charon's usual seat at the front of the bus, beckoning for Heathcliff and Dante to follow, for Don Quixote has conceived of an idea most ingenious for how to solve Heathcliff's problem even trapped as they are on the high seas. She tells the tale of the Red Sack, a legendary Devyat Association Fixer (and presumably previous holder of Vergilius' slot among the Colour Fixers as Heathcliff assumes but Don Quixote doesn't bother to clarify) who would ferry gifts to all the good little boys and girls of the City at Christmastime with his trusty sidekick Reindeer-Man at his side. It's all over Fixers Monthly every winter, after all! Heathcliff, predictably, has no idea what the fuck she's talking about.
Dante: <...>
Narration: I knocked on my ticking clock head. I didn't really feel the need to spell it out for her.
Her "D:" face is instant comedy, very strong 'I'M JUST A WIDDLE GOBWIN' vibes.
Don Quixote: "A-anyhow! What matters to thee, Sir Heathcliff, is that thou endeavoureth to make myself more presentable than anyone else for this occasion, is it not!?"
Heathcliff: "Finally getting to the point, eh? Go on."
Don Quixote: "Marry, good sir, a costume most befitting that occasion would be those of the Red Sack and his sidekick, Reindeer-Man!!!"
Heathcliff. Needs to go to a fancy dress party. In London. And Don Quixote. Wants to send him there. Dressed as fucking Santa Claus.
I must stress that while this event originally ran in the Christmas season of 2023, Christmas is also a thing that happens at the normal time in the world of Limbus Company, and this Intervallo takes place in August. Don is just being fucking insane, but what else is new?
Heathcliff immediately senses that this is just her second go at trying to convince him to do Fixer Cosplay with her (and yes she says "COSPRAY" now that the Intervallo is voiced it's very good) after her initial attempt to do a pair costume of the Fixers del Atardecer Ardiente (Fixers of the Fiery Sunset, don't know if that references anything literary) fell through. Once again he's too tired to even properly threaten her, halfheartedly promising to dispense five bonks around the head and shoulders at a later date, but Don rallies for another charge!
Don Quixote: "... prithee, share thy thoughts of the Fixers that we have laid our eyes upon thus far."
Heathcliff: "What?"
Don Quixote: "Embarrassing, were they? Remember! Were they not fancy and impeccably dressed? Close not thy eyes and heart. Speak!"
Heathcliff: "Absolutely embarrassing sods, yeah. That spandex bloke from K Corp? Looked like he leaped right out of a circus."
Don Quixote: "NAAAYYY! Lord Siegfried was not embarrassing! I say that his outfit was rather dashing, wouldst thou not agree? Allow me to regale thee with information concering the materials of its fabric, so that thy understanding-"
Don has neither ADHD nor autism but the secret combo pack where they fuse together and magnify each other like item synergies in a roguelike. I'm allowed to say that because she's just like me fr, and also my husband.
Regardless, Don Quixote is able to drag herself back on track long enough to concede that Siegfried and his Silver-Age-chic spandex bodysuit is something of an outlier, and that on the whole successful high-grade Fixers dress pretty well seeing as they're well-paid hotshot contractors in a market as volatile as the City. Heathcliff reluctantly concedes her point, as he himself has no leg to stand on regarding what is or isn't appropriately posh attire, but doesn't understand what that has to do with finding said posh togs in the middle of the ocean. To this, Don has an answer! It all comes back to the Backdoor volatility alarm that sounded offscreen the previous day, which at the time Faust had said was none of their concern. Yet while all and sundry were busy heading back to their rooms for the day...
Check out all the freaky lil plushies lying around, Charon's sure made herself at home.
Dante: <So you took a peep at the screen.>
Heathcliff: "You know how to read those complex symbols?"
Don Quixote: "Nay, I myself had little hope of recognising them. Yet, when I looked into them... amongst the symbols on that device were a pair of rather particular symbols I could very easily tell apart from the others! Forsooth, 'twere symbols of the Red Sack and the Reindeer-Man! And next to them was a symbol indicating posh outfits!"
I like how you can see 'posh outfits' and 'Red Sack' (aka the santa-hat emoji) but there is genuinely nothing that looks like a reindeer anywhere on that screen, just snowmen and snowflakes. I don't know if this is an art department miscommunication or if Don's delusional enough to think the obvious snowmen are definitely reindeer (or just lying because she wants to investigate the fun mystery). Dante and Heathcliff both instantly think, correctly, that this is stupid and there's no way that Don's read of the symbols is correct, but Don will not be deterred.
Maybe I'm meme-poisoned but I can't fuckin' handle this frame. "riddle me this, manager esquire. why did the lady dulcinea leave me?"
Don Quixote reveals that she's done much worse than spy on the screen at the helm - she's noticed that oftentimes, the rooms past the Backdoor start displaying symbols, symbols which correspond to the ones that appear on the screen.
Dante: <... Don Quixote, you didn't...!>
Don Quixote: " 'Tis my nature as an adventurer, Manager Esquire! Mine inability to quell the burning adventurous spirit. I prostate before thee!"
Don Quixote: "Know that I have taken the sneakiest of peeks. Marry, twas naught too foolhardy! I have only taken a small peek! And if I were to regale thee that what I witnessed from within, that all my deductions and predictions have been proven true... could thee find within thyself compassion to spare mine soul?"
Heathcliff: "You absolute muppet, why in the bloody hell do you keep doing what everyone tells you not to?"
Dante: <Right, Heathcliff. I just don't understand why some people keep doing things that everyone tells them not to.>
TOLD
Dante ruminates a while longer on the Heathcliff backrooms incident, about how they almost lost Heathcliff for good in the process - but this time is a little different, admittedly. This time they know what's beyond the door they're after (allegedly), which makes all the difference in the world. Less reassuringly, when Dante asks if Don's suggesting calling the team together to explore the Mystery Place beyond the Backdoor she quickly clarifies that just the three of them together should be more than fine because trios are the best kind of adventuring party.
Dante: <... You're just scared of the 'consultation' aren't you?>
Don Quixote they can never make me hate you.
Don continues to exist that it's fine, there won't be a problem, all they have to do is duck in and take the fancy clothes for Heathcliff, and Dante sees through her like a window. Whether she's just bored and jumping the chance to have an adventure, or still obsessed with doing cosplay, Don is doing this for herself more than she's doing it for Heathcliff. But...
... Dante can't forget how bad things got with Ishmael. How they let her spiral because they were too blind to see how bad things were getting and how fast. They see this as a chance to show Heathcliff that they're on his side and stop things from ever reaching the point they did with Ishmael, and jump on it.
Dante: <... fine. But we're turning around at the first sign of danger.>
Heathcliff: "Seriously...?"
Dante: <Come on. You were willing to do it if it meant that you could pick up some clothes.>
Heathcliff: "... well, I suppose we'll be okay as long as Clockhead's with us."
Don tries to set up a secret knock code for the co-conspirators, but Heathcliff just tells her to fuck off to bed, and we jump ahead into the dead of night once the trio have reconvened outside Dante's office. To the extreme and entirely justified alarm of the other two Don immediately leads them past the velvet rope and into the dangerous part of the corridor, where Heathcliff was almost lost forever a few months ago. And yet, despite the danger, once they follow Don's directions, the wind up... exactly where she said they would.
Small sidebar: I tracked down and read all of Leviathan somewhere in between now and last time we talked about the Backdoor's corridor, or rather its Corridor (aka the exact joke Ryoshu was making when she called Gregor a fool for not understanding the difference). I now properly know what Faust was alluding to in her closing lines of the Heathcliff Retrieval Minisode, and Don in her complete ignorance was able to fulfill the terms Faust cryptically laid out for Dante here - one cannot go anywhere in a Corridor without first knowing the destination, or else they'll be lost in the fucking Backrooms like Heathcliff was. Because Don already knew where the door was, Dante and Heathcliff could follow her safely (technically telling them alone was enough because 'knowing the way' is kind of a conceptual requirement), and presumably peeking at the symbols on the screen at the helm is what gave Don the directions/mental passkey to find the door in the first place.
Does this mean I'll be talking more about Leviathan later? Wouldn't you like to know-
Dante: <Huh? H-hold on!>
And with that Heathcliff barges straight through the door, dragging Don and Dante in his wake.
Straight into a... toy factory.
Narration: This place was decorated with numerous Christmas-themed ornaments. Warm, cozy lighting reflected off the wooden flooring, and a maze of conveyor belts were installed all over the place. This place is...
Dante: <... a factory?>
Don Quixote: "Quite!"
The return of Foghorn Don from Canto V
The assembled small figures freeze where they are, then turn at the sound of Don's shout.
Don Quixote: "Give me but a moment. I have already parlayed with these fellows!"
Angery Dante, a rare and coveted sighting in the wild.
One of the larger of the creatures scurries over, and cheerily strikes up a conversation with the trio.
This vocal tic of constantly adding '-ome' to words like a forced rhyme with 'gnome' shared by all the Gnomes is rendered in the voicelines as a '-shoom' or '-shume', which I have to assume is a pun that's at least similar in nature, but I lack the knowledge of Korean to figure out exactly how it works so I invite anyone more knowledgeable than me to help the thread out.
???: "And just as you did before... poof! Appearing from the most unexpected places again-ome!!"
Dante: <Who is this, Don Quixote?>
Don Quixote: "Hm! The one who shall grant us the wonderful gifts indeed!"
Here the Ripped As Fuck gnome rubs his hands together "or what I assumed to be hands", which is another minor art-writing miscommunication because this gnome clearly does have hands, big meaty grabbers too, but all the other gnomes basically have flippers or cartoon nubbins for limbs.
???: "Pleased to make your acquaintance-ome! You must be Lady Don Quixote's friend-omes!"
Dodoru: "My g'name is Dodoru. A gnome who works at this gift factory-ome. And why, of course, I make gifts here-ome."
Dante: <A gnome...?>
Don Quixote: "Indeed, a gnome!"
Narration: ... was that supposed to be obvious?
Patented 'nobody tells Dante shit and just expects them to figure it out because they all forgot they have amnesia' momento. Dante quickly asks for clarification that 'gnome' is not a subset of human nobody told them about, to which Don and Dodoru readily agree. This makes Heathcliff very curious, of course, because he thought nonhumans weren't allowed in the City - Dante backs him up by confirming they're neither Abnormalities nor Distortions either, but Dodoru isn't listening to that part.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Very heroic and open-minded of Don to think like this when Dodoru has evil blazing red-white eyes and a mouth full of fangs and a beard that I'm pretty sure is full of faded bloodstains
Dodoru: "G'of course, of course~ You are absolutely right, m'lady-ome!"
Dante: <Didn't that Dodoru gnome say something weird about the City just now?>
Heathcliff: "So that wasn't just me, huh?"
Another one of those things that crops up all the time in fiction that you're not really supposed to scrutinise because it's purely functional, like guys in black rushing out onstage to clear up props between scenes in a play, but is usually pretty funny when it does get noticed: "dude he just muttered ominously in the middle of our conversation" "yeah idk that shit was insanely suspicious" "he knows we're looking right at him right". Especially since Dodoru just blatantly dives in to break up the discussion by shouting:
Dodoru: "WELL-OME!"
Dodoru: "Do the friends of Lady Don Quixote wish for any present-omes? Say, we have fancy clothes and powerful weapon-omes! Or delicious cookie-omes."
Heathcliff: "Fancy... clothes? So you really have 'em?"
Dodoru: "Looks like we've got a winner-ome!"
It's extremely obvious that none of this is on the level and that Dodoru is basically just cold-reading what the trio are here for, but with Dante legitimately not knowing any better and Don Quixote being painfully naive the braincell rests solely upon Heathcliff, who is also out of his depth on top of being stressed and distracted about the trip to T Corp, so I'll give him a pass this time. Dodoru hurries the trio away from the factory floor and toward what he calls the 'reception hall'.
It is clearly nothing of the goddamn sort.
Dante accurately points out it seems like some warehouse somebody put a comically small amount of furniture in, while Don is like 'holy shit chairs and a fireplace this MUST be the reception hall', and Dodoru beats a hasty retreat claiming to be soon returning with their gifts as promised. Unfortunately Don claims to have heard that 'just don't even finish furnishing your house, gamer' decor has been in mode recently, and Heathcliff corroborates, so Dante reluctantly capitulates.
Don Quixote: "Still thy heart, Manager Esquire! I shall personally be responsible for this expedition and claim ourselves shiny gifts!"
Heathcliff: "Hm... If push comes to shove, I could nab some of these... I saw them packing some shiny, expensive-lookin' stuff over there."
Absolutely wild to see Don scolding Heathcliff and succeeding, but he damn well earned it for all that Ricardo shit.
Narration: Heathcliff was as foul-mouthed as always, but it was evident from his relaxeding expression that his anxiety was starting to ease. Maybe the fact that we're here, about to find what we're looking for... was a comforting thought.
Dante: <Heathcliff, is it that important that you dress well for this... occasion?>
Heathcliff: "... Huh? Oh, yeah..."
Narration: A rather delicate but gently smoldering hearth. Calm, silent air. A perfect atmosphere to bring up uncomfortable subjects for some honest heart-to-heart.
Dante: <Or is someone waiting for you there... Someone who you'd like to dress up for?"
Heathcliff: "Well... I suppose you're not entirely wrong..."
Narration: Don Quixote excitedly and loudly dragged her chair up close to Heathcliff.
The mental image of Don's chair going SKREEEEONK as she schwoops up like hip-to-hip with Heathcliff to be as close as possible to The Conversation is fucking killing me.
Heathcliff: "That's why I have to dress posh when I return. To appear like... a man of quality."
Don Quixote: "Hooh... Hath someone stoked the fire of envy in thy stomach?"
You don't know the half of it, sister.
Dante: <... is this about revenge? Like Ishmael?>
Heathcliff: "Revenge..."
Narration: Heathcliff leaned back in his chair. It creaked as he rocked gently back and forth. There was a look of deep introspection on his face. Which was, if my memory serves me right, a first.
He's even getting cooked in Dante's internal monologue? Free my man!!! ... okay granted this exchange is already inherently funny because the bat with 'REVENGE' carved in it is right there on his talksprite but let's stay in the moment.
Heathcliff: "Well, I suppose you could call it revenge. But... what I really want to do, is... make her regret. Yeah. That's what this is."
Heathcliff: "I'll show them. I'll trample over those bastards who thought I wasn't worth shite."
Heathcliff: "... so that she'll regret not choosing me. So that she will feel that regret down to the deepest reaches of her heart."
Narration: Cathy.
Narration: Heathcliff's eyes tremble a little as he speaks her name.
Narration: He's mentioned that name before.
Narration: His eyes trembled then, too.
Dante: <This Cathy... must be someone pretty important to you.>
Heathcliff: "Of course. Bloody important."
Dante: <So... what happened between the two of you? Between you and Cathy?>
Heathcliff: "Catherine, to be exact. And I call her Cathy. It's a long and complicated story."
While I'm almost certain she means it in an innocent, courtly love kind of way, Don bursting in like "Y'ALL FUCKED?" is hysterical.
Dante: <W-wait, is that what she is to you!?>
Heathcliff: "Huh!? N-no! I-it's nothing like that...!"
Heathcliff: "O-okay. Maybe a little... bit... Hm."
Narration: He's stuttering like Sinclair on a bad day. While his disposition was as brusque as always, I could clearly see that he couldn't stop himself from smiling from a mere mention of her name. And that gave me more than enough answers.
Narration: Every Sinner had a reason for joining Limbus Company, so... maybe Heathcliff joined Limbus Company for this 'Cathy' person.
I have to say, while it hardly excuses the toxic jilted-ex "i'm gonna make that STUPID BITCH regret she ever FUCKING dumped me" type talk from a second ago it makes for a hysterical juxtaposition with exactly 2.5 seconds later when Dante and Don ask him about Cathy as a person and Heathcliff does the equivalent of kicking his feet up in the air and blushing because she makes his tummy feel funny.
Dante: <Makes me wonder what kind of a person she might be, though. Someone that special, that precious to Heathcliff...>
Heathcliff: "Don't be so overdramatic. That ain't me."
Dane: <Now, I do this not out of my obligations as the Manager. But I'm starting to think that I want to help you out. So that you could be the best man you can be for her.>
Don Quixote: "Indeed! We! Shall all! Be! People of quali-"
Oh damn look at all those bloodstains over there that's so crazy.
Over on the darker side of the room a great metal door creaks open, allowing a howling blizzard into the room if only momentarily. Through it comes a huge sleigh, following treadmarks on the floor left by its many previous trips in and out, flanked by several more of the smaller gnomes.
Narration: But they were all... littered with flesh and blood.
The black gnome on the right is the Shadowy Gnome and the green one hidden behind the others in the middle is the Leafy Gnome (wielding a bloody ribbon-wrapped wrench). Even more amusingly, since talksprites try to adhere to the speaker's 'real world' height, the regular gnomes have to stand on teetering stacks of presents just to be visible in the shot (as they would otherwise be concealed by their dialogue boxes or floating in mid-air).
Leafy Gnome: "Phew... my back-ome..."
Shadowy Gnome: "C'mon, friend-ome~ Just think about the looks on our friends' faces when they open their present-omes! All is g'worth it, of course. Well g'worth it."
Leafy Gnome: "Hear-ome, hear-ome!"
The gossiping gnomes begin to freeze at the sight of the Sinners, prompting grumbling and complaining from the gnomes further back in the pack (something that's not immediately clear from the way the dialogue and narration is laid out), which gives Dante all the more time to notice that some of the sacks aboard the sleigh are... thrashing. As if the contents were trying to escape. Heathcliff mutters for Don to ready her lance, but just as she's asking him what the problem is, a young girl's voice rings out from amid the sacks pleading for help.
Cherry Gnome: "Ome!!! What a joyous day-ome! This one's fresh-ome!"
Shadowy Gnome: "But they... they're human-omes!"
Leafy Gnome: "Did manager Dodoru bring 'em in-ome...? How'd he manage to bring in humans so fresh-ome?"
Don Quixote: "So... all along... thy factory has been..."
At this point Dodoru bursts in, just a little too late to stop the trio and sled from meeting.
Dodoru: "Dodoru's done a blunder-ome... that sleight wasn't supposed to be coming here-ome! Don'tcha worry-ome. Just a little game between us gnomes!"
Dante: <That's your excuse...?"
Don Quixote: "Master Dodoru."
Dodoru: "Dodoru's listening-ome."
Dodoru: "R-raw material for presents, of course-ome!!! Besides, Lady Don Quixote-ome? Dodoru's prepared those fancy clothes for you and your friends to wear-ome! Why don't we head right out to wear-"
Dodoru: "You lot! What'd I say about using this storage space-ome!? I told you this one was off limit-omes! What, are ya gonna deliver nothing but disappointment to our neighbour-omes!? Even now, they await gifts from our factory-ome!"
Leafy Gnome: "Oh... my bad-ome..."
Dodoru: "Unnggh-ome...! And I already told the factory director to look forward to this batch-ome!"
Dante: <Haah...>
Narration: What was I thinking? This was absolutely not worth it.
Heathcliff: "I know what you're thinking, Clockhead... so quit sighin' and start strategisin'. We've got to get out of here, yeah?"
Narration: ... yeah. Sitting here and feeling sorry for myself won't do anything. It never did.
Dante: <... Got it.>
Dodoru: "Grab your tool-omes! Fresh, locally produced materials coming up-ome!!!"
Heathcliff: "Right then! Let's crack on, you little shitbags!"
CUE THE PENIS MUSIC
So Miracle in District 20 is a little special, in that it's the first chapter to experiment with the idea of restricting your party by removing Sinners from selection entirely. This is a particularly strong case due to the Sinners removed being 'all of them except Heathcliff and Don', which reduces your options from really trying to make any sort of coherent team to just 'pick the best IDs for them you have' type shit. But the spectre of Having To Do The LP has hung above my head all this time, as I'd like to show a little variety in the kinds of IDs I field for content but the levelcap doesn't actually change until we get to the next Canto. The answer? BokGak! Starting pretty much this year PM started doing reruns of prior Intervallo release events, and not only did they add voice acting, they also added a kind of 'NG+' version of the Intervallo chapters where you can run them rebalanced for the current level cap (i.e. 50 instead of 40) to get completion Lunacy and shit all over again. Because both versions are permanently available, this gives me much more leeway in what kinds of teams I can field for Intervallos. Perhaps even themed ones, as you lot who know what the next Intervallo is can probably imagine.
Middle Don and Pequod Heathcliff are a perfect fit, as both are extremely tough IDs with easy access to Envy skills and a lot of benefits from Envy Res, not to mention the gnomes are all Pierce-weak which Pequod Heathcliff is all about. They're also all Wrath and Gluttony weak (which is very funny because they definitely picked those because they're Christmas colours) with minor resistances to Sloth and Gloom. The gnomes themselves are, oddly enough, Poise-based. Leafy Gnomes inflict Paralyse on crit and deal bonus crit damage with their counters, Cherry Gnomes inflict Bind on crit and gain 1 Attack Power Up if allowed to use their guard without breaking through the tempHP it generates, and Shadow Gnomes inflict Paralyse on crit much like the Leafy ones but have a very dangerous evade that grants 5x2 Poise every evade for the piddly downside of raising their Stagger Threshold by 10 points on a failed dodge. As usual with non-counter defensive skills, it's much better to just ignore or offset them rather than try to brute-force them unless you got a serious SP advantage.
Speaking of SP advantage, they're packing a pair of passives called "Fresh Human-omes!" and "Mine-omes" respectively. The former gives them a flat +2% Heads chance per living Sinner (but unable to breach the normal cap of 95% Heads chance) while the latter grants them 1 Haste and 1 Attack Power Up if the Sinners outnumber the gnomes. Since we only have two Sinners instead of six, the benefits of these passives are negligible, which is an interesting way to slightly modify the difficulty of battling gnomes in this first bout without outright changing their numbers.
Oh yeah and Dodoru is a 'miniboss' in that he has a unique name and slightly inflated health pool, but he's ultimate just another gnome variant, the Manager Gnome. They have the aforementioned guard (granting 2 Attack Power Up instead of just 1) and Bind on crit, but more importantly the skill "Local Raw Material-ome!" where all three coins have an on-crit effect: the first two add 20% more damage to the last apiece, and the the third deals bonus Blunt damage equal to the gnome's Poise Potency. This has some pretty serious damage potential for an ordinary enemy attack, but fundamentally the gnomes aren't too exciting to fight because enemy-sided Poise is kinda whatever as a mechanic: they stack it and then sometimes do more damage to you, you can't really do anything about it except win clashes to stop them gaining Poise, whoop-de-doo.
Casually messatsu towards gnome.
Anyway here's Don using her special counter to absolutely annihilate this gnome's skeleton. It goes on to hit its max roll of 19, and would've been a 23 had the gnome been Vengeance Marked, and it reminds me that while counters are generally very bad defence skills and she's not very 'meta' I think Middle Don is extremely funny and I was glad to have an excuse to use her again.
To her credit, Don is genuinely upset that she led the trio straight into a trap in the aftermath of the battle with the gnomes. Dante notes that "the light of confidence [has] completely faded from Don Quixote's face", and just as quickly assumes the blame for themself. After all, it was always their perogative to call off the mission and return to the Backdoor the moment they realised something was off, but they didn't. One could reasonably argue that getting that heart-to-heart time with Heathcliff was reason enough for the trip, knowing what the LCB Division is meant to face, but Dante's clearly not in the mood to make that kind of assessment right now. In the meantime Don, remembering the sleigh full of squirming sacks, rushes over and unties the knots to free their occupants.
Bodies. Seven in all, tumbling out from a single sack. Each one of them mutilated, barely breathing, some already stone dead.
Heathcliff: "Dammit... I was afraid that this was what we'd find inside the sack."
Interestingly, at this point Dante seems so inured to violence and gore that they barely even react to the corpses, far more interested in the fact that they're wearing a completely different style of clothing than they've seen around the City before, while Heathcliff observes ruefully that that with Dante unable to turn the clock for these poor unfortunates they might as well head back to the bus right away.
But!
Don finds a live one, the girl who cried out for help just prior to the battle.
???: "W-who are you? Your clothes are all weird-looking... I guess you're not from the village...? A-anyways, thank you for saving me..."
The child, who soon reveals her name is Crayon, just as quickly goes from thanking her rescuers to leaping away from Dante in terror, crying something about 'Clockwork Teeth'. Heathcliff, befuddled, can only protest that that's Clockhead and not a monster (<my name is Dante> Dante protests, unheard), while Crayon mumbles that Clockwork Teeth are meant to be all-clock rather than just part-clock, and don't usually show up at this altitude anyway.
Dante: <Thanks for the intro, I guess...>
Crayon: "But I can't hear anything but the tick-tocking of the clock..."
Don Quixote: "Well, Manager Esquire has their reasons... art thou unharmed?"
Crayon: "Yeah..."
Crayon: "Looks like the other people who were dragged here with me weren't so lucky, though..."
Don Quixote's expression grows grave yet again as she observes that the rest of the gnomes' haul must have been Crayon's neighbours from her village, casting the girl a sympathetic look. Crayon herself quickly insists that the Hunters will soon come to save us, but she doesn't get the chance to elaborate - soon, with an audible hiss, brightly-coloured gas fills the room.
Heathcliff: "What's this now!?"
Don Quixote: "Hup... Quick, hold thy breathing!"
Even the damn gas is Christmas-coloured.
Don, Heathcliff and Crayon all drop in seconds, overwhelmed by the gas. But, in an explicit callback to the moment in Canto I where Dante simply tanked the gas grenade which TPK'd all 12 Sinners, Dante is completely unaffected on account of the fact they don't fucking breathe any more. Still, even after Don Quixote's sleepy mumbles indicate that the gas has only knocked them out rather than killed them, it's cold comfort to Dante as the last one left standing. Especially as the door creaks open, and Dante flings themself behind a random crate to hide as more gnomes burst in.
Oh yeah, and this clearly tri-sliced story CG waiting for a third panel to show up? It never does. The right side is just pitch-black forever. I think there was some kind of last-minute art switchup for this Intervallo because that's just So Odd to leave in.
Cherry Gnome: "Ome!!! All that talk of snaggin' three top-notch raw materials... and now look at him-ome! A pile of meat-ome!"
Cherry Gnome: "Omme!! One-ome, two-ome, three-ome... All accounted for, I suppose-ome!"
Small sidebar, since there's no way Dodoru could've known ahead of time how many people Don would bring with her when she came back for her 'gifts', this implies Dodoru left them in the 'reception hall' and immediately wasted time running around bragging to every gnome in sight about how fucking smart he was, thus leading to the trio catching the returning sleigh and turning on him. Top-notch planning, we love to see it.
In any case the gasmasked gnomes collect the 'three' that Dodoru was bragging about and hustle them out the door, leaving Dante sitting in the corner with their [undefined] in their hand as the gas slowly clears.
Loser. Loser idiot baby (affectionate).
Dante: <Haah... what do I do?>
Narration: This harsh truth dawns on me every time we face total annihilation. The truth that, on my own, I am completely useless. If they were with us, I could at least bring them back... but none of the Sinners are here with me. What good am I without them?
Dante: <... it's a miracle that I managed to survive this far...>
Ishmael: "Miracle? What miracle? Come on, get ahold of yourself."
"Dante I'm right in front of you." <It's like I can still hear her voice...>
Sinclair: "You're not hearing things, Manager! We're really here!"
Dante at last looks up to find the entire Sinner roster (barring, of course, Heathcliff and Don Quixote) piling into the room. They don't have too long to talk about what's happened tonight, as right at that moment another Leafy Gnome wanders in talking to itself about having forgotten the mutilated humans in all the excitement about the three live ones, walking straight into a throng of ten more.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
We've got another couple of restricted battles, this time with all Sinners minus Heathcliff and Don available. This is mildly annoying for my planned team, but I substitute a few pieces and roll straight in. What we have here is a rare opportunity to actually show off some more of those story IDs I talked about in the postscript rather than leaving them in the dumpster forever!
Captain Ishmael loves having IDs with Pierce and Pride at her disposal, which is exactly what Kurokumo Ryoshu and Cinq Sinclair are, but I'd also like to point out how despite the zoom-in on the finisher of her s3 shown above, the number on her SP bubble doesn't actually resize to match. This is doubtless because the SP bubbles did not have numbers on launch, denoting the unit's SP situation solely by the grey/red/blue hue of the bubble (which is very annoying for things like EGO cost-benefit analysis in the field), and something fell through the cracks after the patch. Here in particular we see Captain Ishmael securing a kill with said s3, as it's Pierce Wrath and so tears the unfortunate gnome in half, thus she's about to spread 10 SP to a pair of allies with its [After Attack] affix.
Meanwhile, Pequod Yi Sang is straight-up just a Dragoon.
"Fly, My Wings"? False, Dragonsong Dive.
In the aftermath, Dante learns the rather embarrassing truth behind the other Sinners' swift arrival - the second Dante left the bus with Don and Heathcliff a fucking alarm went off and summoned everyone to perform a thorough search for the lost Executive Manager.
Sis is feeling the Heathcliff Instinct to bang on the clock and fighting demons over it.
Outis: "Even if you are the Executive Manager... rogue behaviour such as this poses to ogreat a risk. Please be wary of that."
Dante: <I'm sorry... S-so how did you guys find us?>
Yi Sang: "... I have deduced it."
Turns out, Yi Sang wasn't kidding about making an effort to take more of an active role in his surroundings and keep abreast of impending disaster! He noticed Heathcliff's anxious mood of late just the same as Dante did, and equally noticed Don Quixote's late departure from the bus on the day that she snuck a peek at the screen by the wheel. As it turns out Don Quixote outright did homework for this little excursion, borrowing an encyclopedia from Faust in order to study the symbols she remembered, and she did so while sitting next to Yi Sang. Although he didn't question her directly ("on account of my... conditions..." heavily implying it was an Autism Attack which, I fuckin' feel you bro) he did discern her mutterings of 'costume' and 'cosplay', and through that was able to direct Faust to the correct room beyond the Backdoor.
Meursault: "We engaged several entities of the corridor on our path to this door."
Rodion: "Good thing we only ran into weaklings, though~"
Faust: "An irreversible death of a Sinner could have occurred in the process."
Dante: <Um...>
Faust: "Do you understand? Engaging hostile forces in your absence carries an exceedingly high level of risk."
Meursault: "We could have been lost forever in some corner of the corridors as bodies, never to be revived nor retrieved."
This exchange fascinates me, and not just because the Sinners apparently ran into random encounters in the corridor (just peccatula I assume): Meursault's line implies that Dante requires the Sinner's body to be in close proximity for a rewind to take, hence the risk of the bodies being lost entirely in the shuffle of the corridor, but Faust's line seems to imply that dying at all outside of Dante's immediate purview was the risk. This is something I've talked over with others before and they don't all agree, but I do think there's a possibility that a Sinner's death must be 'an event in Dante's life' -i.e. one that they're present for- for Dante to be able to rewind it, as opposed to just hearing about one of them biting it offscreen.
Screenshotted for how Outis absolutely violates Dante's personal space here.
Narration: I've never seen Outis look at me like that. Her gaze was cold and ruthless.
Faust: "Your survival was a lucky coincidence, Dante. The sequence of those symbols... are not supposed to be interpreted in such a haphazard manner."
Dante: <I'm really sorry... I don't know what else to say.>
Faust: "... I believe that's enough. But..."
Ryoshu: "N.D.Q."
It's at this point the gang finally realise Don Quixote and Heathcliff are missing, forcing Dante to explain everything that happened to the three of them when they first entered. Hilariously even Gregor can't resist a hearty 'what the fuck is wrong with you' before acknowledging that Dante's had enough harranguing for one day and relenting. Instead they ask where they are, speculating they must've teleported to one of the northernmost districts to have wound up somewhere so cold, only for Faust to bunkerbuster the conversation by casually confirming that they're not in the City at all. Heathcliff was right, things like the gnomes aren't allowed in the City, so by stepping through the Backdoor the Sinners have wound up in the other place they go instead: the Outskirts.
Rodion panics, assuming a 'monster' is more like the Mermaids and Whales they faced on the Great Lake, but Dante is quick to point out that the gnomes were almost nothing like the whales. They spoke [undefined D&D Common language don't think about it don't think about it] just fine, they were just... evil. And small. Ishmael admits she'd love to take advantage of this opportunity to poke around a part of the Outskirts she'd never get to experience otherwise, but Hong Lu asks the salient question of 'hey... we can go back right?'
Yes, the can. Currently. There is no timetable for how long the door they took will stay open.
Faust: "Then, an unexpected journey begins. We will have to trek the distance from the Outskirts back to the City, which will be a significant endeavour in both time and effort."
So: We Need To Get Don And Heathcliff Then Fuck Off Imminently.
At this point more gnomes burst in, but there's nothing new to say about the fight so we'll skip over it. In the aftermath, Ishmael remarks that despite the constant "-ome"ing the gnomes are so clearly intelligent that they seem to defy the category of "monster". Faust doesn't disagree, calling the definition "often arbitrary", an answer that seems to interest Ishmael.
Dante: <I appreciate your analyses, but we should probably get moving. We still don't know where Heathcliff and Don Quixote are.>
Outis: "You always say the right things at the right time, Executive Manager."
RAT. Okay proceed.
Meursault: "Exploring the Outskirts area will carry higher risks than our usual operation grounds. To ensure the Manager's safety, we must first establish a more structured plan-"
Ishmael's mighty Duke Nukem boot kicks open the very same door the latest wave of gnomes emerged from.
She...
Ishmael: "Come on, let's go. We'll protect the Manager and save Heathcliff and Don Quixote."
This Intervallo is loaded with random fights, but have another screenshot for the sake of a better look at the toy factory, and a better look at my provisional team. Don't ask me why Kurokumo Rodion is here, I could not possibly tell you - maybe so I could use her counter to fish for Pride-Res but who even knows at this point. The important part is after this node, as the Sinners ascend the stairs into the catwalks above the main gift processing floor and get a proper perspective on the factory.
And Sinclair gets triggered because of the Christmas shit all around them. A-ha-ha, your suffering is limitless and without end, Emil.
Hong Lu: "I wonder if monsters exchange gifts with each other?"
Gregor: "They didn't seem like the most hospitibal sort."
Meursault: "There is a possibility that they may be contractors to one of the Wings in the City."
Dante doesn't even get one syllable into the reflexive 'no there's no way'. They stop, think about it, and decide they've seen enough warcrimes that a Wing would absolutely cosign the shit the gnomes are doing for cheap toys.
And here's the next battle stage, with a nice overlooking view of the central pit where all the Christmas gifts are funnelled to from various parts of the factory. Past this encounter, Dante catches wind of odd noises through the next room.
"NO." "What's that stand for?" "Nothing, I'm just saying no."
Meursault: "I am familiar with this tone. The decibel range of this screaming is an exact match with Don Quixote's."
Bro is using his encyclopedic knowledge of Small Yellow Creature screams to determine the way forward, you simply have to hand it to him.
Outis: "Wait. We have yet to conduct a threat assessment of the combat area. That area appears to be a closed-off space, which means-"
Yi Sang: "Outis. Were Heathcliff with us, he would have said as such."
Outis: "Said what?"
Dante: <I think I know.>
Oomfies...
Ishmael proceeds to give the door the Dick Kickem routine, and the Sinners burst into the workshop.
Meanwhile, we cut back slightly earlier in the night to the moment of Heathcliff and Don first awakening in their new predicament.
Me on pretty much any given day in the last four weeks.
Don Quixote: "Forsooth, we are fated to become toys in that hydraulic press... It appears that, when the time cometh, I shall be turned into a roly-poly toy myself... that riseth with every fall... Agh..."
Heathcliff: "Oi! Shut your trap and do something! We've got to get out of these binds!"
BINDS MENTION!? Sorry, you'll get that later.
Don Quixote: "Sir Heathcliff, I apologise profusely...! 'Tis true that there was the tiniest bit of selfishness within me that I wished to procure the Red Sack cosplay set for myself... However... 'twas no lie that I wished to find thee an impeccable outfit!"
Heathcliff: "You little shite, I knew that this was going to happen. Once I'm out of these binds, I'll..."
Don Quixote: "Sob... at least thou shall become an elaborate pocket watch..."
Heathcliff: "Augh...! Damn clocks, again...!?"
Crayon: "I-I think they're going to turn me into a box of colour pencils... Sob... twenty-four vibrant natural colours, or so it says..."
The gnomes chatter amongst themselves, annoyed by the sheer volume of their captives' wailing but excited that "the more they scream, the happier our recipients will be", and are just about to commence the 'cutting' when Ishmael's mighty boot unlocks the door and allows the Sinners to pour in.
Ryoshu: *whistle* "Quite cozy in here."
And Ryoshu wastes no time at all being a freak, as usual.
Don Quixote: "Everyone...!"
Heathcliff: "H-how..."
Dante: <We're here for you, Heathcliff.>
Heathcliff: "Clockhead...! Dammit, didn't think I'd ever be this glad to see your mug..."
Yi Sang cuts Heathcliff's bonds, allowing him to jump free of the gift assembly line shortly before winding up on a hydraulic press channel, and the brusque Sinner finds himself overwhelmed with emotion.
Sorry buddy, can't get TOO emotionally healthy in here, your Canto's still just around the corner!
Ishmael asks Dante what the plan is now, and despite the ticking clock (no pun intended) until the door back to the bus closes, Dante won't allow a place like this to remain standing. Orders are to trash the place, and all gnomes who stand in their way. It's a surprisingly confident move from Dante, and one that receives no complaints from the Sinners.
The next and final combat stage of the Intervallo, and my 'proper' team. It's technically Bleed and a little bit of Poise but it's primarily about balancing Pride and Envy Res in order to maximise triggers for Captain Ishmael, Pequod Heathcliff and Middle Don's abilities. Being Pierce/Blunt allows N Faust's version of the Gaze debuff (enhancing Pierce and Blunt damage received by the target the following turn rather than force-Staggering them) to pull its weight, and with both Representations Emitter and Hex Nail she has relatively easy access to both Pride and Envy for resonance purposes. The odd one out here is Meursault, as sadly with no Gloom on the table it's impossible for him to fuel Chains of Others, hampering Pride Res potential. Even so, with his Envy skill buffing potential and ability to throw himself into losing clashes he's still a decent forceadd to the team - not to mention his and Don's Wrath generation means Regret is on the table to shore up his otherwise lacklustre 00 ID numbers.
Anyway, once the Sinners have slaughtered every single gnome in the workshop Don and Heathcliff kneel down as if making ready to be fucking executed, and Dante makes to kneel down beside them before Outis abruptly yanks them out of the splash zone.
I appreciate they made two different CGs for the same room to sell 'no yeah the Sinners swept through those short kings like Saruman taking over the Shire' for all that the actual fight was just a standard 10-enemy normal-battle.
Don Quixote: "... I am ready... Commence, Lady Outis..."
Outis: "You absolute buffoons... How did you ever think that this was going to turn out okay? Are you even aware of the risks Executive Manager took to get here? How worried they were about you two!?"
Resplendant Rodent's Retort, a social retaliation Charm against which there is no defence or counter.
Outis: "Do not refer to the Executive Manager with such derogatory language! Insolent fool!"
Don Quixote: "Heeaugh! 'Twas mine fault! 'Twas mine fault!"
Meursault: "My mother used to scold me like this in my youth."
God, even Meursault's pointing out the mother-coding, I can't wait to see Telemachus in the eventual Canto XI. Outis bawls out Don and Heathcliff for so long and so intensely that Dante ends up fully fucking leaving so as not to slowly melt into a puddle with guilt for cosigning the expedition in the first place, deciding to distract themself by asking after Crayon. Turns out she passed out at some point, whether from the stress of coming so close to being pressed into a pack of colour pencils or the subsequent Gnome Massacre perpetuated by the Sinners, but by now she's up and ready to talk again. Now that everyone's properly up to speed on the fact that the Sinners are from the City and she's from the Outskirts, she explains that monsters like the gnomes have been a fact of life for her her entire life, and settlements like her village are supposed to keep them safe. Unfortunately this year the gnomes attacked while their Hunters were away on another mission, far out of season compared to their usual movements, and Crayon's neighbours were swiftly overwhelmed. Every last one of them ended up in the sacks, Crayon spared only because she passed out from fight and was mistaken for dead by the gnomes.
"Oh, right, the trauma."
Crayon: "N-no, it's okay... Can I... ask things, too?"
Gregor: "Anything."
Crayon: "Is it right that crayon boxes in the City have 48 different colours? And they have gold and silver coloured crayons, too?"
Gregor, audibly confused: "Um... probably..."
Crayon: "And... there's just people in the City, right? No... monsters like the gnomes that try to kill us, right?"
Rodion: "Hm... It's kinda hard to answer that, actually."
Crayon: "Sometimes, I'd climb a high hill to look at the City. I always saw pretty, colourful lights fromk up there... So colourful that I don't have enough colours in my crayon box to draw them all. I wish I could live in the City. If I lived there, I'd never have to worry about getting attacked by monsters. I could live happily with all my neighbours..."
Pictured: Rodion's instincts not to be pointlessly cruel to a random child fighting the demon that is 'y'all heard of capitalism?' in her head.
Ryoshu: "S.S.E."
Crayon: "I'm sorry...?"
Ryoshu: "Same story everywhere. Doesn't matter where you are. Death always stalks us."
Crayon: "Whoah... that was so cool! Can you say that again?"
Dante: <Huh? That was cool...?>
Realising, in a flash of terrible insight, the possibility that Ryoshu is Like This because the youth think it's cool and it all ties back to her lost child.
Crayon asks if any of the Sinners saw another human around the factory, anxiously hoping that one Hunter in particular - "the best Hunter of Cloud Town" - will be coming to save them any minute now. The Sinners of course haven't seen hide nor hair of the man, but in the quiet confusion that follows Rodion finally asks the million-dollar question about the entire 'kill and kidnap humans to turn into Christmas gifts' racket:
???: "HO! HO! HO! Of course, the gifts are for our poor and kind neighbours who do not cry!"
Outis: "Executive Manager! Retreat!"
Captain Ishmael loves having IDs with Pierce and Pride at her disposal, which is exactly what Kurokumo Ryoshu and Cinq Sinclair are, but I'd also like to point out how despite the zoom-in on the finisher of her s3 shown above, the number on her SP bubble doesn't actually resize to match. This is doubtless because the SP bubbles did not have numbers on launch, denoting the unit's SP situation solely by the grey/red/blue hue of the bubble (which is very annoying for things like EGO cost-benefit analysis in the field), and something fell through the cracks after the patch. Here in particular we see Captain Ishmael securing a kill with said s3, as it's Pierce Wrath and so tears the unfortunate gnome in half, thus she's about to spread 10 SP to a pair of allies with its [After Attack] affix.
Meanwhile, Pequod Yi Sang is straight-up just a Dragoon.
"Fly, My Wings"? False, Dragonsong Dive.
In the aftermath, Dante learns the rather embarrassing truth behind the other Sinners' swift arrival - the second Dante left the bus with Don and Heathcliff a fucking alarm went off and summoned everyone to perform a thorough search for the lost Executive Manager.
Sis is feeling the Heathcliff Instinct to bang on the clock and fighting demons over it.
Outis: "Even if you are the Executive Manager... rogue behaviour such as this poses to ogreat a risk. Please be wary of that."
Dante: <I'm sorry... S-so how did you guys find us?>
Yi Sang: "... I have deduced it."
Turns out, Yi Sang wasn't kidding about making an effort to take more of an active role in his surroundings and keep abreast of impending disaster! He noticed Heathcliff's anxious mood of late just the same as Dante did, and equally noticed Don Quixote's late departure from the bus on the day that she snuck a peek at the screen by the wheel. As it turns out Don Quixote outright did homework for this little excursion, borrowing an encyclopedia from Faust in order to study the symbols she remembered, and she did so while sitting next to Yi Sang. Although he didn't question her directly ("on account of my... conditions..." heavily implying it was an Autism Attack which, I fuckin' feel you bro) he did discern her mutterings of 'costume' and 'cosplay', and through that was able to direct Faust to the correct room beyond the Backdoor.
Meursault: "We engaged several entities of the corridor on our path to this door."
Rodion: "Good thing we only ran into weaklings, though~"
Faust: "An irreversible death of a Sinner could have occurred in the process."
Dante: <Um...>
Faust: "Do you understand? Engaging hostile forces in your absence carries an exceedingly high level of risk."
Meursault: "We could have been lost forever in some corner of the corridors as bodies, never to be revived nor retrieved."
This exchange fascinates me, and not just because the Sinners apparently ran into random encounters in the corridor (just peccatula I assume): Meursault's line implies that Dante requires the Sinner's body to be in close proximity for a rewind to take, hence the risk of the bodies being lost entirely in the shuffle of the corridor, but Faust's line seems to imply that dying at all outside of Dante's immediate purview was the risk. This is something I've talked over with others before and they don't all agree, but I do think there's a possibility that a Sinner's death must be 'an event in Dante's life' -i.e. one that they're present for- for Dante to be able to rewind it, as opposed to just hearing about one of them biting it offscreen.
Screenshotted for how Outis absolutely violates Dante's personal space here.
Narration: I've never seen Outis look at me like that. Her gaze was cold and ruthless.
Faust: "Your survival was a lucky coincidence, Dante. The sequence of those symbols... are not supposed to be interpreted in such a haphazard manner."
Dante: <I'm really sorry... I don't know what else to say.>
Faust: "... I believe that's enough. But..."
Ryoshu: "N.D.Q."
It's at this point the gang finally realise Don Quixote and Heathcliff are missing, forcing Dante to explain everything that happened to the three of them when they first entered. Hilariously even Gregor can't resist a hearty 'what the fuck is wrong with you' before acknowledging that Dante's had enough harranguing for one day and relenting. Instead they ask where they are, speculating they must've teleported to one of the northernmost districts to have wound up somewhere so cold, only for Faust to bunkerbuster the conversation by casually confirming that they're not in the City at all. Heathcliff was right, things like the gnomes aren't allowed in the City, so by stepping through the Backdoor the Sinners have wound up in the other place they go instead: the Outskirts.
Rodion panics, assuming a 'monster' is more like the Mermaids and Whales they faced on the Great Lake, but Dante is quick to point out that the gnomes were almost nothing like the whales. They spoke [undefined D&D Common language don't think about it don't think about it] just fine, they were just... evil. And small. Ishmael admits she'd love to take advantage of this opportunity to poke around a part of the Outskirts she'd never get to experience otherwise, but Hong Lu asks the salient question of 'hey... we can go back right?'
Yes, the can. Currently. There is no timetable for how long the door they took will stay open.
Faust: "Then, an unexpected journey begins. We will have to trek the distance from the Outskirts back to the City, which will be a significant endeavour in both time and effort."
So: We Need To Get Don And Heathcliff Then Fuck Off Imminently.
At this point more gnomes burst in, but there's nothing new to say about the fight so we'll skip over it. In the aftermath, Ishmael remarks that despite the constant "-ome"ing the gnomes are so clearly intelligent that they seem to defy the category of "monster". Faust doesn't disagree, calling the definition "often arbitrary", an answer that seems to interest Ishmael.
Dante: <I appreciate your analyses, but we should probably get moving. We still don't know where Heathcliff and Don Quixote are.>
Outis: "You always say the right things at the right time, Executive Manager."
RAT. Okay proceed.
Meursault: "Exploring the Outskirts area will carry higher risks than our usual operation grounds. To ensure the Manager's safety, we must first establish a more structured plan-"
Ishmael's mighty Duke Nukem boot kicks open the very same door the latest wave of gnomes emerged from.
She...
Ishmael: "Come on, let's go. We'll protect the Manager and save Heathcliff and Don Quixote."
This Intervallo is loaded with random fights, but have another screenshot for the sake of a better look at the toy factory, and a better look at my provisional team. Don't ask me why Kurokumo Rodion is here, I could not possibly tell you - maybe so I could use her counter to fish for Pride-Res but who even knows at this point. The important part is after this node, as the Sinners ascend the stairs into the catwalks above the main gift processing floor and get a proper perspective on the factory.
And Sinclair gets triggered because of the Christmas shit all around them. A-ha-ha, your suffering is limitless and without end, Emil.
Hong Lu: "I wonder if monsters exchange gifts with each other?"
Gregor: "They didn't seem like the most hospitibal sort."
Meursault: "There is a possibility that they may be contractors to one of the Wings in the City."
Dante doesn't even get one syllable into the reflexive 'no there's no way'. They stop, think about it, and decide they've seen enough warcrimes that a Wing would absolutely cosign the shit the gnomes are doing for cheap toys.
And here's the next battle stage, with a nice overlooking view of the central pit where all the Christmas gifts are funnelled to from various parts of the factory. Past this encounter, Dante catches wind of odd noises through the next room.
"NO." "What's that stand for?" "Nothing, I'm just saying no."
Meursault: "I am familiar with this tone. The decibel range of this screaming is an exact match with Don Quixote's."
Bro is using his encyclopedic knowledge of Small Yellow Creature screams to determine the way forward, you simply have to hand it to him.
Outis: "Wait. We have yet to conduct a threat assessment of the combat area. That area appears to be a closed-off space, which means-"
Yi Sang: "Outis. Were Heathcliff with us, he would have said as such."
Outis: "Said what?"
Dante: <I think I know.>
Oomfies...
Ishmael proceeds to give the door the Dick Kickem routine, and the Sinners burst into the workshop.
Meanwhile, we cut back slightly earlier in the night to the moment of Heathcliff and Don first awakening in their new predicament.
Me on pretty much any given day in the last four weeks.
Don Quixote: "Forsooth, we are fated to become toys in that hydraulic press... It appears that, when the time cometh, I shall be turned into a roly-poly toy myself... that riseth with every fall... Agh..."
Heathcliff: "Oi! Shut your trap and do something! We've got to get out of these binds!"
BINDS MENTION!? Sorry, you'll get that later.
Don Quixote: "Sir Heathcliff, I apologise profusely...! 'Tis true that there was the tiniest bit of selfishness within me that I wished to procure the Red Sack cosplay set for myself... However... 'twas no lie that I wished to find thee an impeccable outfit!"
Heathcliff: "You little shite, I knew that this was going to happen. Once I'm out of these binds, I'll..."
Don Quixote: "Sob... at least thou shall become an elaborate pocket watch..."
Heathcliff: "Augh...! Damn clocks, again...!?"
Crayon: "I-I think they're going to turn me into a box of colour pencils... Sob... twenty-four vibrant natural colours, or so it says..."
The gnomes chatter amongst themselves, annoyed by the sheer volume of their captives' wailing but excited that "the more they scream, the happier our recipients will be", and are just about to commence the 'cutting' when Ishmael's mighty boot unlocks the door and allows the Sinners to pour in.
Ryoshu: *whistle* "Quite cozy in here."
And Ryoshu wastes no time at all being a freak, as usual.
Don Quixote: "Everyone...!"
Heathcliff: "H-how..."
Dante: <We're here for you, Heathcliff.>
Heathcliff: "Clockhead...! Dammit, didn't think I'd ever be this glad to see your mug..."
Yi Sang cuts Heathcliff's bonds, allowing him to jump free of the gift assembly line shortly before winding up on a hydraulic press channel, and the brusque Sinner finds himself overwhelmed with emotion.
Sorry buddy, can't get TOO emotionally healthy in here, your Canto's still just around the corner!
Ishmael asks Dante what the plan is now, and despite the ticking clock (no pun intended) until the door back to the bus closes, Dante won't allow a place like this to remain standing. Orders are to trash the place, and all gnomes who stand in their way. It's a surprisingly confident move from Dante, and one that receives no complaints from the Sinners.
The next and final combat stage of the Intervallo, and my 'proper' team. It's technically Bleed and a little bit of Poise but it's primarily about balancing Pride and Envy Res in order to maximise triggers for Captain Ishmael, Pequod Heathcliff and Middle Don's abilities. Being Pierce/Blunt allows N Faust's version of the Gaze debuff (enhancing Pierce and Blunt damage received by the target the following turn rather than force-Staggering them) to pull its weight, and with both Representations Emitter and Hex Nail she has relatively easy access to both Pride and Envy for resonance purposes. The odd one out here is Meursault, as sadly with no Gloom on the table it's impossible for him to fuel Chains of Others, hampering Pride Res potential. Even so, with his Envy skill buffing potential and ability to throw himself into losing clashes he's still a decent forceadd to the team - not to mention his and Don's Wrath generation means Regret is on the table to shore up his otherwise lacklustre 00 ID numbers.
Anyway, once the Sinners have slaughtered every single gnome in the workshop Don and Heathcliff kneel down as if making ready to be fucking executed, and Dante makes to kneel down beside them before Outis abruptly yanks them out of the splash zone.
I appreciate they made two different CGs for the same room to sell 'no yeah the Sinners swept through those short kings like Saruman taking over the Shire' for all that the actual fight was just a standard 10-enemy normal-battle.
Don Quixote: "... I am ready... Commence, Lady Outis..."
Outis: "You absolute buffoons... How did you ever think that this was going to turn out okay? Are you even aware of the risks Executive Manager took to get here? How worried they were about you two!?"
Resplendant Rodent's Retort, a social retaliation Charm against which there is no defence or counter.
Outis: "Do not refer to the Executive Manager with such derogatory language! Insolent fool!"
Don Quixote: "Heeaugh! 'Twas mine fault! 'Twas mine fault!"
Meursault: "My mother used to scold me like this in my youth."
God, even Meursault's pointing out the mother-coding, I can't wait to see Telemachus in the eventual Canto XI. Outis bawls out Don and Heathcliff for so long and so intensely that Dante ends up fully fucking leaving so as not to slowly melt into a puddle with guilt for cosigning the expedition in the first place, deciding to distract themself by asking after Crayon. Turns out she passed out at some point, whether from the stress of coming so close to being pressed into a pack of colour pencils or the subsequent Gnome Massacre perpetuated by the Sinners, but by now she's up and ready to talk again. Now that everyone's properly up to speed on the fact that the Sinners are from the City and she's from the Outskirts, she explains that monsters like the gnomes have been a fact of life for her her entire life, and settlements like her village are supposed to keep them safe. Unfortunately this year the gnomes attacked while their Hunters were away on another mission, far out of season compared to their usual movements, and Crayon's neighbours were swiftly overwhelmed. Every last one of them ended up in the sacks, Crayon spared only because she passed out from fight and was mistaken for dead by the gnomes.
"Oh, right, the trauma."
Crayon: "N-no, it's okay... Can I... ask things, too?"
Gregor: "Anything."
Crayon: "Is it right that crayon boxes in the City have 48 different colours? And they have gold and silver coloured crayons, too?"
Gregor, audibly confused: "Um... probably..."
Crayon: "And... there's just people in the City, right? No... monsters like the gnomes that try to kill us, right?"
Rodion: "Hm... It's kinda hard to answer that, actually."
Crayon: "Sometimes, I'd climb a high hill to look at the City. I always saw pretty, colourful lights fromk up there... So colourful that I don't have enough colours in my crayon box to draw them all. I wish I could live in the City. If I lived there, I'd never have to worry about getting attacked by monsters. I could live happily with all my neighbours..."
Pictured: Rodion's instincts not to be pointlessly cruel to a random child fighting the demon that is 'y'all heard of capitalism?' in her head.
Ryoshu: "S.S.E."
Crayon: "I'm sorry...?"
Ryoshu: "Same story everywhere. Doesn't matter where you are. Death always stalks us."
Crayon: "Whoah... that was so cool! Can you say that again?"
Dante: <Huh? That was cool...?>
Realising, in a flash of terrible insight, the possibility that Ryoshu is Like This because the youth think it's cool and it all ties back to her lost child.
Crayon asks if any of the Sinners saw another human around the factory, anxiously hoping that one Hunter in particular - "the best Hunter of Cloud Town" - will be coming to save them any minute now. The Sinners of course haven't seen hide nor hair of the man, but in the quiet confusion that follows Rodion finally asks the million-dollar question about the entire 'kill and kidnap humans to turn into Christmas gifts' racket:
???: "HO! HO! HO! Of course, the gifts are for our poor and kind neighbours who do not cry!"
Outis: "Executive Manager! Retreat!"
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Note: Monster Santa Claus Not To Scale
Rodion: "Augh! What is that thing!?"
Santata: "I am Santata, bringer of gifts to our neighbours! HO! HO! HO!"
Narration: The guffawing giant, garbed in red, carried a massive gift sack on his shoulder. It was definitely not human.
Heathcliff: "Yeah! It's that git! That one's the boss!"
Don Quixote: "Lo! The crimson garb! That is the crimson garb that I spoke of!"
Heathcliff: "That's the Red Sack's outfit? Oi, then he's already..."
Don Quixote: "N-no! Not the Reindeer-man, too!"
Bro this is a level 40 monster, if a damn Colour Fixer got bushwhacked by a bunch of gnomes and their Manlet King boss then I think red is just the cursed slot among the Colour Fixers, you will never escape Allegations if you get a title in that spectrum.
After shouting for Don and Heathcliff to shut the fuck up, Outis mutters to Dante her intentions to parlay, given the opportunity posed by Santata's capacity for speech. The other Sinners chatter in the meantime, mostly just establishing that Santata is specifically a "Beard Giant" and not a particularly humongous thick sickoid gnome, and that of course he doesn't work for anyone in the City because monsters aren't even allowed in.
Santata: "We and our neighbours in the Outskirts wish so dearly for that very day. The only day we are allowed joy and comfort in human gifts."
Meursault: "I see. You produce toys out of humans and gift them to those who harbour hatred for humans."
Meursault: "Out of the pure goodness of your heart."
Santata: "Here, where all those who have been marginalised and exiled by humans gather and wallow... we pour our infinite hatred and care into packaging these gifts. HO! HO! HO!"
Yeah I mean hard to get a clearer declaration of war here.
Santata: "HO! HO! HO! Why don't you come here and join us, become joy to those who need it?"
BEHOLD, THE CHRISTMAS PENIS MUSIC TO END ALL PENIS MUSIC.
The boss battle node opens with two waves of regular gnomes to let you build up SP and sin resources, but we've seen more than enough gnomes for one Christmas, so we'll skip past those to get to the big guy himself. Suffice it to say that Middle Meursault's passive helps a lot with quickly topping out his and Don's SP, and securing a timely kill with N Faust's s3 for the partywide 10 SP lovebomb sees me turn up to the club with everyone save Captain Ishmael's SP maxed.
Compared to the gnomes prior, Santata is a bizarre mixture of Poise and Charge which on reflection may be entirely due to the fact he's festooned with Christmas lights. He turns up with 6x2 Poise already stocked, not to mention the "I'll Gift-wrap You" status which grants him 3 Poise Potency every turn on top of 3 SP for every attack he managed to successfully land in the previous turn, two things the wiki for some reason doesn't mention. He'll need all this free Poise gen, because his Scattering Breath passive causes him to lose 1 Poise Potency each time he's hit by an attack skill (so no EGO or counters I assume), and his Lights Out passive means he'll dump all his Charge if you Stagger him. What's he use Charge for? Well I'm glad you asked: basically nothing. Once he hits 10 Charge he gains the "HO! HO! HO!" buff next turn, which gives him some free Poise Count the turn after it triggers, but its primary purpose is to enable the use of his strongest skill, Let's Get Packing. Technically "HO! HO! HO!" only expires when his Charge hits 0, but Let's Get Packing dumps all his Charge, so it's impossible for him to have the status for longer than 1 turn unless he's below 30% hp at which point he gains it every turn anyway from his passive. Bizarrely, Let's Get Packing has affix text that says each coin gains the 'inflict 1 Paralyse next turn' effect while he has "HO! HO! HO!", but he already only uses it while he has that status effect, so why the fuck isn't it just part of the normal text? Very bizarre.
Right, enough getting sidetracked. He's mono-blunt with a spread of Gluttony, Sloth and Wrath skills. Be The Joy is an extremely weak attack that inflicts some Bind and gains some Poise, Be The Comfort is an average-power attack that gains a fuckton of Poise and Poise Count, Here's A Gift is single-coin that gains a bunch of free Clash Power from Santata's superior speed if targeting someone with Bind to synergise with his first skill, then finally Let's Get Packing which is his strongest skill and inflicts or applies a random selection of buffs and debuffs before draining the target's SP equal to the Charge he had on activation. This does, however, give him 2 Paralyse next turn if he fails to secure a kill with it, and hilariously there's one particular affix - "Deal bonus damage equal to Poise Potency on self" - that is coded so wrong it triggers against himself while executing the attack.
Check it out, I managed to capture him at a perfect 666 HP. Lucky me, this botched clash with Meursault gives Santata the Vengeance Mark for next turn, which is right when I would need it most.
He uses the Big Daddy version of the Gnome and Manager Gnomes' self-buffing guards. It's a winner-takes-all gamble: if I can chew through 80-100 tempHP in one round, I get a free stagger. If I can't, he gets 2 Attack Power Up, which will make clashing with him next turn basically impossible, especially when he drops Let's Get Packing.
So I Offset it with Heathcliff's Counter, ignored the bet entirely and beat the fuck out of him. What? I didn't have any good resonance chains lined up.
Third turn, he's amassed enough Charge from the [On Use] affixes of his skills to prep Let's Get Packing, and I have a choice here. Faust brings Hex Nail, and Hex Nail is very good for this team because it's an EGO fuelled entirely by Envy which inflicts either 3 Pierce Fragility and 1 Envy Fragility on awakening or 1 Pierce Fragility and 3 Envy Fragility on Corrosion, giving it the flexibility to serve both halves of this team's strengths. The problem is that the Corrosion targets indiscriminately, so I decide only buffuing Heathcliff and Yi Sang is fine if it means a guaranteed won clash with this fool. Plus, N Corp Faust is Blunt Ineffective so even if his Stagger Threshold weren't so close she won't have to worry... about...
What're Unbreakable Coins?
Hate. Let me tell you how much I have come to HATE you. I have 35 trillion red blood cells in wafer thin layers that fill my body. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those trillions of cells it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for unbreakable coins in this microinstant. For that damn parade. Hate. Hate.
Don't call it a grave, it's the future you chose.
Don't worry about it
Just a funny lil bonus thing for the BokGak rerun.
Anyway Faust Staggered the dude with Hex Nail so I ripped through like half his remaining health and left him on death's door on the fourth and final turn of the fight, which bestowed upon me a rare and much-appreciated opportunity.
Alright Heathcliff, time to show this poser how you really stuff a dead body in a bag and carry it around.
In a flurry of savage blows too rapid and incoherent to really capture in screenshots, Heathcliff beats his foe into a bloody pulp with a bloody sack wrapped in barbed wire. Oh boy, I wonder what this could represent? I think it's a reference to the part of Wuthering Heights where Cathy says she's been really getting into Wuthering Waves and then Heathcliff shows up and asks "Wuthering What" then wuthers all over everybody.
In a surprise post-battle cutscene Santata plans to take the Sinners with him as his already bountiful belly begins to expand alarmingly. A new and unseen voice barks for the Sinners to hold their breaths as a figure leaps from the dark and drives a stake into the giant's stomach. Though this brave interjection stops what we soon learn would've been a lethal reaction, the release of absolutely foul gasses that follows is enough to knock most of the Sinners clear off their feet regardless.
... Yi Sang what the fuck.
Faust: "This gas does not appear to be toxic. However, its scent seems to evoke... a rather extreme level of discomfort."
More of that 'UI colour hints at allegience', even with his name rendered as '???' we can tell he's the man Crayon was waiting for because his nameplate is black-on-grey.
Ishmael: "Proper procedure?"
???: "Immediately before death, a northern giant's body fills with noxious gas before exploding in a rain of acid. You have to puncture a hole in its gut to let out the gas before its internal organs condense it into acidic fluid. Allowing it to cause a chain reaction could... complicate things."
Heathcliff: "Ack... the stench won't come off. Who's that now?"
Crayon: "M-mister Domino!!!"
Crayon runs up and hugs Domino on sight, the Hunter relieved by the sight of her alive and well. Outis, coughing and sputtering and coping, gathers her wits enough to march up to Domino and demand he identify himself properly - sure enough, he's the monster-hunter of Cloud Town Crayon spoke of, though he remarks ruefully that he can't call it much of a town any longer when he and Crayon are the sole survivors.
Amusingly, once Outis confirms Domino is who Crayon was talking about she immediately goes and leans on a wall to continue Dying from the smell. She knew she had to lock in, if only for a little while, and we love her dedication.
Domino: "Normally, around this time of year, these monsters would've gone further north to a different village... so I was on an expedition to help them out. Looks like they decided to switch things up this time around. When I returned, they'd already finished their raid on our village and left... Damn it, they used to be so predictable, attacking only right before Christmas."
Yi Sang: "... do these tragedies happen often?"
Domino: "Though I can't speak for the City, I can say that this is a common occurrence in the Outskirts. It's a hellish place to live, if you can even call this living. Survival alone is a miracle out here."
Sinclair: "Are there a lot more places out here like this... like this mockery of a gift factory?"
Domino: "No, can't say I've seen a factory like this anywhere else. But I can tell you one thing."
Domino: "Compared to some worse things that could've happened... this tragedy was nothing. That's the natural order of things in the Outskirts."
Domino: "I do wonder, sometimes. If we were in the City, no matter how bad it gets in there... it must be better than this living hell."
Narration: It was no easy contemplation to answer. The Outskirts must be a hellish place to live, if what he's told me is anything to go by. But...
Narration: ... the City they admire so much... isn't such a warm place itself. From what I've seen in my journey so far, at least.
If there's any greater theme we can use to draw a line from Miracle In District 20 to the 'main plot' as it were, it's this. "The grass is greener on the other side" is a pervasive idea that affects just about all walks of life, and it can be a devious trap for the unwary if acted upon. The people of the Outskirts knowing nothing but hardship and isolation, looking down at what they don't have and seeing only the beauty they interpret from the City's distant lights, ignorant of the ugliness lurking in the shadows between, is an idea we may just be able to apply to our reading of Canto VI once its time comes. But I won't get ahead of myself.
Don Quixote reflexively offers to bring Domino into the City with them via the Backdoor, only to quiet herself beneath the weight of a dozen withering stares. Domino appreciates the sentiment, but already knows it would be impossible.
Domino: "I wish it were that easy. If I could at least let this child enter the City somehow, just like that...'
Domino: "But the City... has no place to spare for this child. Not even a small corner of it."
On the more depressingly realistic side of the equation, Faust points out that even if Domino and/or Crayon made it past the City's walls they'd have endless reams of paperwork to fill out to even have a chance at the life they desire. Domino can only laugh at the thought of people like him and Crayon going through the whole process of filling out forms and applying to study or work when the whole system is clearly set up to keep the likes of them out forever. Don can think of nothing to say to soften the blow, and an uncomfortable silence falls.
Domino: "I must still extend my gratitude for keeping the girl safe until my arrival."
Narration: Rodion's eyes were twinkling. The lingering stench made it difficult for her to speak, but she was determined to make her point.
Holy shit, Rodya. This dude is clearly impoverished and recently lost his home and everyone he ever loved and cared about save this small traumatised child, and you're trying to shake him down for a quest reward? This is no offhand comment either, she's fighting the Public Bathroom Demons to make sure she gets this out.
Strangely Domino does not kick Rodion's ass for this, but instead seems to have the perfect thing in mind. He has a collection of 'antique items' he salvaged from around the mysterious railway tracks that encircle the entire City at a healthy distance from its walls, visible in prior maps of the City but never before commented on.
Ishmael's D&D adventurer brain triggers like a landmine and she uses an emoji bubble normally reserved exclusively for Don Quixote at the thought of getting Outskirts Loot, but sadly Dante is there to spoil the fun by pointing out that they're still on an unknown timer and cannot justify going all the way back to Cloud Town to look at the funny rocks Domino has collected.
Outis: "If you would permit me to speak my mind, Executive Manager. Even if this is not the Great Lake... the Outskirts is an extremely perilous place. This curiosity cannot be a reason for us to risk getting stranded in this environment."
Another Outis Momento where it feels like there's a sense of personal experience in her phrasing. I've seen some theorising around the fanbase of Outis being based more on Ulysses than Odysseus - as in the Divine Comedy itself, Dante encounters Odysseus in the Eighth Circle where he burns eternally in flame for his schemes and deceptions in the Trojan War, but the account Odysseus gives Dante is that after he never made it home at all. That after departing Circe's island, Odysseus sailed west past the Pillars of Hercules (the Gibraltar strait, where Spain and Africa pucker up to kiss the homies goodnight) to the edge of the world, where they saw a great mountain rising from the sea - Purgatory, the next leg in Dante's journey - before being shipwrecked and lost to a man. This is the version, under the name Ulysses, referred to in Alfred Tennyson's poem of the same name.
There's not really enough evidence to go on yet, but also it feels like a very pertinent literary reference to bring up right now, so let the readers be the judge.
Domino tosses Dante a small, carved wooden statue so as to leave them at least some small token of his gratitude, and with that the Sinners depart without any more fanfare. In fact, some of the Sinners have entirely passed out at this point and must be carried by the others (discounting those who had speaking roles in that exchange that leaves Ryoshu, Meursault, Hong Lu and Gregor as possible cases of honk shoo, which is a mighty amusing spread). To the Sinners' eternal relief the door is still open, and they find dawn is breaking by the time they emerge safe and sound back in Mephistopheles.
The smell announces their return, and Charon beats a hasty retreat to the deck to escape it.
And Vergilius is, perhaps, a tad irritable.
Vergilius: "Looks like everyone's had quite the adventure. Covered in blood and guts... and with a disgusting stench to boot."
Dante: <Oh, this is...>
Vergilius: "... Manager. I can't hear you anyway. So just reply to my query with a nod or a shake."
Vergilius: "I have but one question."
Vergilius: "... was it you who made the call?"
Dante hesitates. But nods. Even knowing Vergilius would be in his rights to reprimand or punish them, they won't weasel out of a problem they know they created by giving Heathcliff the green light.
Huh.wav, bass-boosted.
Vergilius: "I will leave it to you to deal with this mess. You may rest afterward. And please, do something about this foul stench."
Vergilius: "Well, then."
And with that, Vergilius promptly fucks off into the Backdoor to go do crosswords in his room or whatever it is he does all day.
I really like this moment. I'd been digging into the subtler bits of Vergilius characterisation previously, but this is probably the first overt sign that Vergilius isn't just being an asshole for the sake of it.
Dante: <Huh. That's unexpected. I thought my time had finally come.>
Don Quixote: "be glad! The best consultation is a consultation not had, indeed..."
Don Quixote: "Alas! behold, one and all!"
Heathcliff's doing the damn Shinji pose in the background there.
Don, having somehow found the time to loot a bunch of bullshit from the gnomes' workshop, proudly proclaims her intent to festoon Mephi with Christmas decorations.
Sinclair: "Wait, now? But we're still, like, three months away from Christmas..."
Outis: "Agreed. Let us not risk peeling old wounds. To lower the morale of our company is..."
Sinclair: "Oh, it's... okay. It's been getting better with time. Little by little."
Ishmael: "Yeah. We can all grow beyond it. Eventually."
Awww. Look at them, trying to be all emotionally mature people on the path to bettering themselves.
Don Quixote: "Mmhm~ Marvelous!"
Don Quixote: "Then this appears to be an occasion most fit for a PAR-TAY then! What say you!?"
Ishmael: "Don't tell me you went through all that trouble for some party decorations...?"
Faust: "According to Dante's explanations, this incident was spurred on by Heathcliff's need for an outfit."
Attention shifts back to Heathcliff, as Don stammers out her regrets that the very outfit they set out to retrieve turned out to be worn by Santata as a trophy (and wouldn't have fit him anyway). It's here we get confirmation of what could already be decently assumed: Heathcliff stole the hair coupons from Ricardo hoping to get himself immaculately styled for the shindig in T Corp, and part of why he's been so antsy has been because they sailed right past the portship where he could've cashed those in, making the whole affair a waste of time.
I feel like if you left Heathcliff alone with Hong Lu as his stylist that man is coming out in thigh-highs.
Heathcliff makes an attempt to keep dancing around the issue, but Gregor at last just directly asks him what he got from Vergilius that started this whole affair, and Heathcliff decides "fuck it". He produces a letter, tucked away in an envelope of such luxurious make that Hong Lu recognises it by sight as the kind his own family have used before ("made from really expensive paper, made only in limited quantities at a time", absolutely barbaric behaviour). Rodion excitedly pressures Dante into reading it aloud for the entire bus, and pausing only to make node of the "almost calligraphic perfection" of its handwriting, proceeds to do so.
From Wuthering Heights.
We cordially extend you, honoured guest, an invitation to the ███████
Dante: <Uh... what's this here? Somebody coloured over this part of the letter... well, I'll keep reading.>
Venue: Wuthering Heights, T Corp Nest.
Should you accept our invitation, please convene at the designated location by four in the afternoon on the 24th with this letter on your person.
Please, honour this occasion with your presence.
With great respect,
Nelly.
Dante: <Oh, and down here's a... postscript. It's written in a different handwriting fromk the rest of the letter...>
Narration: We had no way to tell what kind of 'occasion' it was on account of it being coloured over, but... clearly, the rest of the letter's contents had stoked the fire of passion in Heathcliff's heart once again.
Rodion: "So..."
Gregor: "You gotta look fashionable and classy for this Cathy person... right?"
Heathcliff: "Well, yeah. But there's more to it than-"
Rodion: "Now I can clearly see why you were so impatient, 'Heath'."
Heathcliff: "Huh!? Why are you lookin' at me like that? Oi!?"
Rodion: "I'll leave it up to you to style his hair, master hairdresser Hong Ly."
Heathcliff: "Oi, wait! W-where are you taking me? guh, what in the bloody hell is this grip-"
Ishmael: "Mmhm, yeah. Rodya's got quite the grip strength... you won't free yourself from her anytime soon."
Rodion abducts Heathcliff with her vaunted Babushka Strength to be her mannequin, and outlet for her boredom, while Hong Lu is just happy to be included. Don Quixote, off with the fairies, begins decorating Mephi with the stolen trinkets anyway.
Dante heads outside to the deck, fiddling with the wood carved statue Domino tossed them, and pondering the many untold stories of the Outskirts. Faust comes out to chat with them about it, but as you can tell from me skimming over it like this I don't really like it - it's very overt on Dante and Faust turning to camera and telling You, The Player Reading This that There Are More Outskirts Plots but They Will Wait Until We're Done With The City, which is kinda... "motherfucker you brought it up, I didn't care that much about the Outskirts before you sent me there".
Still, it's not an ending worth completely skipping over.
Narration: Joyous laughter and frustrated howls echoed out of the cabins. They must've finished dressing up Heathcliff.
Dante: <... Why don't we go take a look at how Heathcliff is doing, Faust?>
Narration: The added colour to the Bus' interior warmed my heart a little.
Miracle In District 20 was kind of a rough sit for LP purposes. It is ultimately kinda fillery, the fights aren't very interesting which is bad 'cause there's a whole lot of em, Domino and Crayon aren't all that compelling, and I don't like the aforementioned on-the-nose conversation about future Outskirts stories. That doesn't even mean I dislike it! It's very funny! I like the horrid penis music! But from a 'professional' standpoint I am very, very happy to have it in my rearview mirror.
Miracle is also kind of unique in that it's the first and so far only event to have zero IDs attached to it, instead offering one free and one paid EGO for Heathcliff and Outis respectively. Even when they reran it recently, they simply added two more EGO for Ishmael and Gregor. This is probably in equal parts due to the fact that there's fuck all for ID fodder in the Miracle story and because they blew the 'ID budget' entirely on the next Intervallo. Said Intervallo may or may not be the first time I have a kind of 'mini postscript' to talk about relevant IDs, but we'll see how we're travelling when we get there. Until then, thank you very much for reading.
NEXT STOP - INTERVALLO III-2: YIELD MY FLESH TO CLAIM THEIR BONES
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LupineVolt
Now with 200% more Puns
- Location
- Michigan
Our powers combined create complex layers of mechanical optimized time-wasting. Love you boo~
So yeah! Miracle! It's such a bizarre interlude, and I suppose that's kinda what happens when one of the driving forces behind its design is the real world holiday season. The BokGak bringing new mechanics, and having all of Don's unhinged ramblings voiced is incredibly beneficial to the tone of the event. But ultimately I think it sits at the bottom of the pile of 'side content'. It's fun! But it doesn't leave you really wishing for more.
Seasickness, more likely.
Miracle in D20 is in an unfortunate spot as far as events go. It's funny, but it's not as funny as Hell's Chicken. It's Canto foreshadowing, but it's not as impactful as Magic Hellbus. It's interesting exposition on a part of PM's setting that hasn't been seen before in prior games, but it's not as good nor interesting as [Intervallo Not Found]. It's not a standout in terms of difficulty. It's not great at expositing on character development for a Canto we just had--Ishmael had like one scene. It doesn't bring back fan-favorites from previous games either. Overall, its reputation as "mid" is fairly well-deserved all things considered.
EDIT: it doesn't even take place in District 20 why
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WanderingTwix
Posting something good once in a full moon
- Location
- United Kingdom
Considering how unlikely it is that Sir Red Sack perished to giant man + being in Fixer's Monthly every winter, my impression is that the Red Sack (and Reindeer Man) is just a fabrication, perhaps created by Fixer's Monthly itself to boost sales or whatever.
- Location
- The Z-Cave
When I played the Intervello, I more so saw it as a sign of improvement from the Sinners. Dante takes initiative to help Heathcliff, Don is less divorced from the rest of the group and shows discretion, Muersault actually gives his thoughts on things, Outis' fear for Dante's life seems to have some actually loyalty behind it than her normal rattery, Ishmael takes the lead, and Hong Lu wants to help Heathcliff, and while he stills slips into toxic jilted failed boyfriend territory Heathcliff shows a much greater degree of self-awareness of his problems and tried to have a mature talk about his feelings with Dante and Don. This is all serious progress compared to where they were at the start.
It also darkly amuses me that the gnomes were trying to create an economy to better incentivize monsters to kill more humans.
It also darkly amuses me that the gnomes were trying to create an economy to better incentivize monsters to kill more humans.
Dybbukpossesed
Falling Somewhere
- Location
- California
I have a theory about how the Red Sack perished against this scrub, but my evidence involes two ID's that I don't think were introduced by this point and I don't want to spoil things...
thelordofmango
may be stupid
- Location
- under a rock
Yeah, while I'll admit the Intervallo on the whole was pretty mid, I do also have a big soft spot for the gnomes. The Gnome Tri-Ome Announcer pack is one of my favorites, with inspiring quotes such as "Holy Shit-Ome".
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Pronouns
- He/Him
No matter how many times i hear it that title always goes hard
As a Dragoon main in FFXIV, my realization of what Pequod!Sang's S3 really was made me so unreasonably happy.
Personally I see Miracle intervallo as worth it for the character interactions alone, especially given the VA work in the Bokgak (I had just caught up to that point in the story when the rerun was running). Also, the Sinners really spent so incredibly long on the boat (several weeks both after SEA intervallo and again after Canto V) it's hilarious.
Kalibrius
God of reflection
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
There's one thing to consider
Asides the red sack likely being a fixer my bet is him being from R corp
Why?
Simple, There's only one place I can think of where someone can unironically BE called reindeer man
I can honestly imagine that the red sack was a good friend of the r corp reindeer before whatever happened that killed him
Wouldn't be surprised if the snowmen was the symbol worn by the reindeer who worked WITH red sack, like a motorcycle or military patch
Asides the red sack likely being a fixer my bet is him being from R corp
Why?
Simple, There's only one place I can think of where someone can unironically BE called reindeer man
I can honestly imagine that the red sack was a good friend of the r corp reindeer before whatever happened that killed him
Wouldn't be surprised if the snowmen was the symbol worn by the reindeer who worked WITH red sack, like a motorcycle or military patch
If he is fixer than he coudlnt be part of R-corp.
Kalibrius
God of reflection
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
I meant from r corps district
Also siegfried Shows fixers CAN work for or with wings if high profile enough
Not a stretch that red sack was 'sponsored' by R corp
I would go on a limb and speculate that the Fixer that continuously appears on magazines near Christmas (as alleged by Don Quixote, a person famous for their tenuous ability to differentiate fact from fiction) is fictional.
Christianity may be forgotten, but the Christmas-Industrial complex will live on forever.
Christianity may be forgotten, but the Christmas-Industrial complex will live on forever.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Paru Itagaki's Sanda shows that Cathy could be into that
Also onl in Limbus Company do we have She/her Don Quixote wingmanning Heathcliff by proposing an operation to find and rob Santa Claus of hi clothes so he can impress Catherine and get laid
So relatable. WOuld love to make a collection of plushies to leave around. Project moon is good at designing spooky but cute dolls.
Stealing that to use in Mage: the Awakening. Mastigos vibes
Dante is coming into their own as a manager, more willing to scold the employees
Absolutely wild that the rich have this dumb trend and Don, our fixer obsessed space cadet, is tuned in to that.
The fashion thied Heathcliff
Well, she will make sure they will, with that Santa outfit. She is the best wingwoman
It will turn out Cathy has been writing the City version of Itagaki's Sanda, with the male lead looking a lot like Heathcliff
Love when Heathcliff's better nature shines through, he really wanted to help these people
Autism Attack? Like, overload?
"Search and destroy! Search and destroy! Massacre them all! Paint this factory blood crimson, and let no one escape alive!"
Also another sign of Dante's maturation
Chuuni mom and her chuuni daughter. Yuzuki gonna have an eyepatch for coolness sake and a plastic sword, and infodumping about bloody and violent manga like Hellsing. Love the idea of Ryoshu babysitting edgy teenagers in some sort of feelgood emotional movie. Like The Pacifier or whatever
Wait, crack/joke/non-serious theory. What if Ryoshu's always sheathed sword is some plastic sword or a low quality mall ninja odachi that'd break if swung unsheathed, and that's why Ryoshu fights with the scabbard?
Sarcastic Meursault is a rare treasure
With this rob Snata operation, Heathcliff is officially a fashion kleptomaniac who almost doomed the party twice, and Faust couldn't predict either disaster. His shenanigans surpass the planning that was put into this hellbus expedition (Faust did say facing the Middle at that point was utterly unprecended and outside the planning put into this journey).
Heathcliff is the player the table probably keeps joking about for years as being a danger of TPK.
Fem heathcliff would be interesting to see
The War Economy...
War has changed...
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drearyArchon
Chaos Lord Chaos
- Location
- The Floor of Social Sciences
I don't think that's sarcasm. For all that the Gnomes are hostile to humans like Crayon, humans are objectively the great evil of this setting.
The City plundered the rest of the world and left behind the wastes of the Outskirts. Should we really blame them for playing Lorax?
Kalibrius
God of reflection
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
less lorax and more like poison ivy and other gains vengeance type characters
Good reasons, unjustifiable actions
Turning innocents unaffiliated with your grudge into toys is NOT justifiable
If anything doing so merely due to being the same species as your persecutors is as justifiable as Nagel und hammers own ideology
Yeah they have a good reason to hate city folk but that's it
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Dream Logic
An offseason swallow
- Location
- In transit
Just want to note something I love about the world building.
I highly doubt the gnomes existed when Lobotomy Corp was made but Santatata's speech includes the same phrase as Rudolta I.E. 'a gift of infinite hatred'. Given they are both takes on Santa Clause they are also clearly connected in universe.
It's really fun to see them double back and give depth to what was honestly a completely random abnormality by tying it into the world more concretely.
I highly doubt the gnomes existed when Lobotomy Corp was made but Santatata's speech includes the same phrase as Rudolta I.E. 'a gift of infinite hatred'. Given they are both takes on Santa Clause they are also clearly connected in universe.
It's really fun to see them double back and give depth to what was honestly a completely random abnormality by tying it into the world more concretely.
Sylent-M
Be Trans, Take to Heresy
- Pronouns
- Was/Were
If I were to hazard a guess, it's because the goal is to slice through an artery and they're all sinners whose base weapon is something long and bladed. Couldn't say why Rodya & Sinclair aren't included as well though. Something about axe blades being no good for that particular sort of cut?
I also want to say that this LP has been a joy to read. I especially like how there's so much stuff that's not important and that I don't need to worry about.
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- Location
- Who knows?
Wanted to note I also appreciate this thread for educating my "do the bare minimum to get an A in English class" ass on all the thematic parallels and cool references and reinterpretations of classics.