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Mar 25, 2021 04:13
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Block... but very, very carefully. If we scratch his car I think he'll stop being nice.
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Mar 25, 2021 06:32
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I don't understand why you kept letting Linda past you. It's the rules of the race and you could have been in first place by now. Sure, she was nice, but that's no reason to throw the match. Block as much as possible. I don't know what motes would work here. Death might work so use it. Actually, can you use the spyglass on him? He hasn't really shown his weakness and we really need to win this. Also, if you lose, reload and try the race again. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Mar 25, 2021 |
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Mar 25, 2021 07:41
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cant cook creole bream posted:I don't understand why you kept letting Linda past you. It's the rules of the race and you could have been in first place by now. Sure, she was nice, but that's no reason to throw the match. I don't think his weakness is here, there's no mention of a passenger 
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Mar 25, 2021 13:08
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cant cook creole bream posted:I don't understand why you kept letting Linda past you. It's the rules of the race and you could have been in first place by now. Sure, she was nice, but that's no reason to throw the match. -First, dramatic tension is fun, and hitting first place before we reach the Styx is not dramatic tension. -Second, we can win either way - I suspect not wasting motes blocking passers who won't shoot back if you pass them is optimal, unless it would be the difference between victory and defeat. We're spending motes on events anyway, so it's not as if it would be a net resource save (unless taking the lead quickly lets you skip events, which I've never tested). -Third, there's (notionally) no prize, and shooting at the other racers is (notionally) putting their lives in danger during an extreme sport. Messing with the other racers is absolutely fair, but there are clearly some social norms among some of the racers - particularly the ones we find pleasant. Linda phrased it as "If you get slow enough people might try to pass you. Then you get to decide if you're the sort that shoots on the racetrack." quote:Also, if you lose, reload and try the race again.
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Mar 25, 2021 16:17
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  Welcome back. Last time, we were nearing the last leg of our race, and some rear end in a top hat in a black Bentley is about to overtake us. He never actually *attacked* us, but he is seriously threatening our push for first place. The thread suggested that we use the Golden Spyglass to figure out his vulnerability, but you can't use webship equipment when being overtaken - just in case you might have thought the Spyglass was useful for something. Like the Bentley driver, we  appreciate good music. Attacking other drivers is, of course, entirely fair. The thread (generally) wanted something that wouldn't come off as too harmful, so we use a Dark mote to block his view of the pass. I suspect just about anything works for blocks, but blocking with an Order or Life mote or something feels weird.  We've seen unpredictable currents before, and the Non-Euclidean Sail's served us well on them.  I unfurl the Non-Euclidean Sail.I chart my own erratic course through the current. I gain 23 Momentum. [+2 from rudder] [+5 from Susan] [+8 from sails] [+8 from engines]  Our speed is pretty absurd with Susan's assistance. They seem like Water spirits, but I'd rather put my faith in Susan's shield than a mote. Susan shields us from the wrathful attacks.I gain 23 Momentum. [+2 from rudder] [+5 from Susan] [+8 from sails] [+8 from engines]  That's first place. As long as he doesn't pass back instantaneously or we royally screw up the next event, we should be out of range.  We're out of Water and Love, so it seems like we can only really hope that our Fire mote will subdue it for long enough. I boil the rapids with Fire.That doesn't end well for anyone. Lost 2 health. I gain 18 Momentum. [+2 from rudder] [+5 from Susan] [+8 from sails] [+8 from engines] [-5 from event]  Elemental counters are a mug's game. The Bentley is rallying something fierce, but I think we're still out of range. I warm myself with Life, and that staves off the worst of the winds.I pass through the winds safely. I gain 23 Momentum. [+2 from rudder] [+5 from Susan] [+8 from sails] [+8 from engines]  Let's make ourselves a little bit more out of range. I race forward, putting distance between me and the closest competitor. I'm assuming that does something not displayed in the UI, because it feels like we just blew 40 momentum. I'm tempted to blast the Goblin Horn at Charon, but we've probably annoyed him enough for one day. I briefly take control of Charon's boat with Order, one of the elements used to craft it.I slide him out of the way. I gain 23 Momentum. [+2 from rudder] [+5 from Susan] [+8 from sails] [+8 from engines]  We cruise across the finish line and are rewarded with an emotion. That's new. All in all, not a bad race. I would like to have taken less than 11 damage, but that magma demon did a number on us. But I don't waste time.I race further, over the smooth waters beyond the finish line. I finish gathering Momentum.  Susan leaves us with a rather worrying comment. If all goes well, we can just ask her to elaborate once we're back in our meat. My ship rockets upwards, crashing through the barrier of resistance.I feel a sudden surge of familiarity. This is me. I'm arriving at me. I feel the pull upward increase unbearably.I pull the webship to a screeching halt. ==> I don't want to beach it on the rocky shores of reality. But I continue to rise.  I'm sure Pisces has surfaced hundreds of times in her life, but this is the first for us.  Excuse me?   Hani saves us from the worst of it. We'll need to leave him a positive review. I look around. ==> think around? ==> intentionally become conscious of my own mind.Despite the fact that I have been (and currently am) using this place to have these thoughts, I find being in here disconcerting. I...do not spend a great deal of time on self-reflection. I do not do well when trapped with my own thoughts. I hastily confirm that I can return to the Web.And indeed, my webship is floating just below my consciousness. ==> The octopus waves at me. I can get out of here, if I need to.  Welcome to the final zone of the game.  We can rise at any time and complete the game, though we'd lose a bunch of spells and memories in the process.  Our health has been replaced with resilience, and our goal is to build it up enough that we can rise unscathed. Our inventory has also disappeared, replaced with tools from Pisces' psychology, of which we have only one (triumph). Clearing this zone is a matter of getting our own thoughts in order.  Speaking of our health being replaced with resilience...  This should help us along a smidge. If we were really playing optimally, we'd likely have ignored a bunch of healing sources to get more value out of the Strength full heal, then came back after the race to replenish. Still, we're in respectable shape.  Returning to our mind and traveling east, we find a lot of locked rooms sealed behind our memories.  The path to the north is locked off to us for reasons unrelated to our memories. We'll circle back to it later - for now, we'll dive into our memories, starting with After the Fire. The worst part isn't the break.No. No. The worst part comes after the break. The uncomfortable, inconvenient, painful, road to recovery. Only this time, I would never recover.  To solve these puzzles, we need to go through all the memories we collected and place the correct ones in each slot. Omaxim will tell us what number of the memories we've chosen are correct for any given puzzle, but we get infinite tries with mere "correct/incorrect" feedback. Here are  Our Memories if you want to play along.. . . . .  Too Tired to Yell doesn't go here, oddly enough. We have a detailed picture of the good and the bad from those months, and we get some resilience as a reward. But for there to be a time After the Fire.There must be a time Before the Fire. And a Fire. I cast my mind back to that. Unlocked path to Memory  Completing this also gives us another roomfull of memories to process. We'll start with Learning to Code and work our way down. It is a gentle jump from code to magicif you have the right teacher. My first spell was forecasting the weather using a RNG seeded with the sum of a Tarot reading. I began with a knack for fortune-telling, and then got better. Though I failed to foretell a typical tragedy. One that happens to most children.  Memories disappear from our stockpile when we re-insert them successfully. That makes the later phases of this quite a bit more convenient. . . . . .  We have a bunch more memories relating to our prophecy magic as well, but it seems like they belong elsewhere. Let's move on to Before the Fire. It's funny how sometimes events are defined by what happens after them.It seems unfair, that some memories live in the shadow of their future. I don't remember being in love as well as I remember the bitterness that followed. Why do I remember so many sad things? Was my life sad?  . . . . .  The hell memories don't actually go here - just the hell memories' aftermath. This one unlocks something other than Just More Memories. Also, we have now doubled our previous max health!   A place I once lived.Small, but comfortable. ==> Small, and eventually claustrophobic. The walls are painted white with patches of lighter white. The plumbing is visible--the house's organs exposed. ==> But the pipes are hung with origami cranes made from red paper and metro cards. ==> Brody's work. I was never into physical crafts. Or whimsy. I'm not sure if I miss this. ==> Maybe parts of it.  A psychologist would actually be really useful in here. Let's see if he'll join our party. Eh. That doesn't feel right.Doctor Linden doesn't come and do stuff with me. We talk, and he calls me out on my bullshit. I should talk to him. I should probably talk to him a few times. Making progress with him always involves a lot of talking.   I'm finding a lot of things in my mind that I don't like.Apart from the fire. I mean, in addition to the fire, I suppose.  Can you give me an example? There's a chasm between me and my conceptualizations of my friends. And I'm so disconnected from my feelings I can't even see them.I feel like a mess. Human brains are messy things.It's easy to focus on things that bother you. But it might also be useful to consider the progress you've made. For example, you collected so many of your memories, and you've put them back together enough to remember me. That's a significant accomplishment! Hm. Gained thought cognitive reframing.There's a lot of our mind that we'd need to spend thoughts and feelings to access. To really start building resilience, we'll need to amass thoughts and feelings to unlock them.  Four memory slots. I'm assuming you can guess which memories. . . . . .  This doesn't give us a lot of resilience, as we'd expect. His name is Brody, and we're done in the Apartment for now. Our next memory batch is The Fire. Pain etches memories into stone.Years of my life are vague sketches in my mind, but this moment of searing loss swarms with detail.  A rather large chunk of our remaining memories. . . . . .  All of Pisces' high school memories slot in here, including her apprentice. Fittingly, it unlocks the school for us.  There he is now. My classroom.Long desks. Some with computers. ==> There were always more students than computers. That was difficult to juggle. Walls coated with garish posters. ==> I once had them print out all of the code for their final projects to give them a sense of how much they had done. We completely covered a wall with it. It feels good to be here again. But I'm also having trouble breathing.  Let's see what advice Harvey has for us. Harvey thinks before answering. As always. You should focus on unlocking resources.And opening up areas. Once you have access to everything, figure out how to optimally invest your resources. That's what I do in video games. That's very good advice for this zone and, as we saw, for Sea++ in general.  One more memory room to go. I was loved.I was loved so much I took it for granted, and I think that's good and healthy. There was pain. This was when I met my frustrating, fragile body. But I also discovered water.  From here on, there's no real ambiguity in what memories go where.  Like the classroom, the Home has a chunk of descriptive text and a Dad. My first home. ==> I'm not sure I ever had a second one.It's full of pillows and color. Dad liked pillows. Mom liked color. I was an only child, but never lonely. I had Dad.  Some fatherly advice wouldn't go astray.  Just take care of yourself.That's the most important thing. You need to be good to yourself or you're no good to anyone else. Thanks Dad. To the south is what's probably the easiest memory bundle, even including the memories we've already used. A paisley necklace.A checkered cowl. A fluttering trail of blue.  The Office is very much a mirror of the Home. My mother's office was her domain.She spent so much time there, and we would miss each other, so sometimes after school I went to her office instead of going home. I'd sit by her desk and play with her office toys and listen when she called people. She'd show me how to do my scarf like hers was that day.  Mom exudes competence. She may have ideas about our situation.  Be careful.Think about what you do, before you do it. Think about what you say, before you say it. Small things sometimes matter a great deal. Not the most laser-targeted advice, but it gives us an idea about how Pisces views her mother.  Finally, you may have recalled a door labeled "The Plan" to the south of our first memory. No difficulty cracking that one open, as we only have three memories left. I remember how I planned Revenge.Used memory too tired to yell. Used memory vengeance. Used memory select prophecy. I am filled with cold satisfaction. Gained 20 Resilience. I don't remember the details of my revenge.But I know where I can find them.  The plan is done, and it might even be safer for us if we don't remember.  But we want to know. The knowledge is hidden behind a bastard of a tarot puzzle - it's three phases long, and every position can be occupied by every major arcana. Duplicates are allowed. Fortunately, the puzzle accepts answers in both row and column format, and arcana are interchangeable within each row or column. Still, you might want to pop open a tarot guide for this one - I don't even think we've seen one of the hands it's asking us to make. Each text fragment corresponds to a 3x3 grid of major arcana. What are they?
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Mar 26, 2021 04:17
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I think the second segment is Chaotic, so Fool, Fortune, World...
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Mar 26, 2021 04:55
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Are the fragments independent of each other? If so: First fragment: Emperor/Empress/Priestess, Death/Devil/Tower, Fool/Hermit/Lovers
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Mar 26, 2021 04:58
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Leraika posted:Are the fragments independent of each other? Leraika posted:First fragment: Emperor/Empress/Priestess, Death/Devil/Tower, Fool/Hermit/Lovers Junpei posted:I think the second segment is Chaotic, so Fool, Fortune, World...
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Mar 26, 2021 05:12
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Third fragment, if I'm not misreading it, is Judgment/Strength/Temperance, Devil/Moon/Strength, Death/Hanged Man/Judgment
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Mar 26, 2021 05:39
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Those memory puzzles were terrible. And I was completely stuck there. If you have Omaxim you can use it about a dozen times in total to get a hint. But that only tells you how many of the selected memories belong there. Once that's used up even that help is gone. From there on it's tedious brute forcing between ambivalent choices of memories, which sound like they would fit there.
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Mar 26, 2021 07:47
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Leraika posted:Third fragment, if I'm not misreading it, is Judgment/Strength/Temperance, Devil/Moon/Strength, Death/Hanged Man/Judgment cant cook creole bream posted:Those memory puzzles were terrible. And I was completely stuck there. If you have Omaxim you can use it about a dozen times in total to get a hint. But that only tells you how many of the selected memories belong there. Once that's used up even that help is gone. From there on it's tedious brute forcing between ambivalent choices of memories, which sound like they would fit there.
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Mar 26, 2021 14:01
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Okay, yeah, I get how it works now - I was pretty unsure about number three. The tarot guide does help a lot. I'll let someone else finish getting number two.
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Mar 26, 2021 14:07
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I think number two is "rules" - lawful, "mechanism" - tools, and "anarchy" - chaotic. So, Chariot/Hierophant/Justice, Chariot/Fortune/Tower and the previously confirmed Fool/Fortune/World
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Mar 26, 2021 17:42
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Deveritas posted:I think number two is "rules" - lawful, "mechanism" - tools, and "anarchy" - chaotic.
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Mar 26, 2021 18:03
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  Welcome back. Last time, we found a massive wall of fire blocking us off from our body, and we began repairing our mind to build up the strength to break through. in the course of this, we learned what Pisces' plan was, but Pisces can apparently only communicate this through the medium of tarot puzzles. This puzzle references "our masters", which we take as a Rulers Triplet, "shadows and black magic" for a Dark Triplet, and a "brief and fragile" Mortals Triplet.   Step 1 of The Plan doesn't really tell us anything, except a reference to Mrs. Best from Open Sorcery 1. On to Step 2. We interpret "the rules" as Lawful, "every mean and mechanism" as Tools, and "anarchy" as Chaotic.  Step 2 is spicier. We're an open sorcerer, so patenting spells is probably about as evil as it gets to us.  Our plan might be going a smidge off the rails, but let's see where Pisces is going with this.  The first two rows are Forces and Pact, which is fair enough. That third one is the Execution Triplet, which we narrowly avoided seeing in this playthrough - pretty high-scoring, not that that's relevant for this puzzle. I see why they tried to kill me.I guess they don't want the world to end. I remember.I pored over omens and portents. I found the ones that were most likely to occur and the most likely to remake the world in a way that would shake loose the leeches on top of it. Gained 10 Resilience.  And that gave me access to the Oracle at Delphi.So I could deliver the prophecies to the people who needed to hear them at the times they needed to be heard. I decided to fall. So that I could rise. So that I could plant the seeds of their demise.  Interestingly, it sounds like Susan endorsed this plan, even though she didn't seem to particularly loathe the Excellence Corporation. Right now, I need to finish this game.Let's go. Gained 20 Resilience.  Seems like this "destroying the world" thing is a good time to talk to Dr. Linden to steady ourselves. We pick up another thought in the process, then return to our webship.  The visuals are a bit misleading here. Clicking "Rise" will get us singed, but clicking "Think" just lets us move to a new area.  An empty area, admittedly, but it opens up other rooms that have a bit more to do.  Not north. North gives us some fun visuals, though.  The northeast room is more promising. We've done the boss-tier tarot puzzle, and now it's time for the boss-tier assembly puzzle. quote:} quote:while(done == false){ quote:function assemble_spell(mm_type){ quote:if (SUCCESS(retcode)) AethernetSpellcheck(spell_data); quote:Power power = new Power(mm_type); . . . . . function assemble_spell(mm_type){Array instructions = []; boolean ready = false; boolean done = false; while(done == false){ cout << 'envision next instruction'; cin >> ready; if(ready){ string current_thought = $('#pisces #current.thought').html(); instructions.push(current_thought); } cout << 'finished with instruction?'; cin >> done; } string my_emotion = $('#pisces #current.feeling').html(); Emote emotional_marker = new Emote(my_emotion); Power power = new Power(mm_type); cin >> power; if (power.checkMatch() == false) return 'The input matter or motive is not of the correct type.'; SpellData spell_data = new SpellData(instructions, emotional_marker, power); string retcode = AethernetConnect( 'Server;Server=OSPublicUse;Uid=Pisces;Pwd=' + SusanSecure.Encode(const.pass)); if (SUCCESS(retcode)) AethernetSpellcheck(spell_data); else return 'Could not connect to Aethernet.'; if(spell_data.valid != true) return 'Spell poorly formatted. See following errors: ' + spell_data.errorlog; AethernetDisconnect(); return spell_data; }  I'm not actually a programmer, so I have no idea how common it is to name class variables after their class, except lower-case. I just know I do it. quote:function compile_spell(spell_data){ quote:retcode = AethernetQuerySpell(address_id); quote:portal.close(); quote:retcode = AethernetQuerySpace(spell_data.size); quote:SusanSecure.twiceSeal(portal,'so mote it be'); quote:string retcode = AethernetConnect( 'Server;Server=OSPublicUse;Uid=Pisces;Pwd=' + SusanSecure.Encode(const.pass)); . . . . . function compile_spell(spell_data){string retcode = AethernetConnect( 'Server;Server=OSPublicUse;Uid=Pisces;Pwd=' + SusanSecure.Encode(const.pass)); if(!SUCCESS(retcode)) return 'Could not connect to Aethernet.'; retcode = AethernetQuerySpace(spell_data.size); if(!SUCCESS(retcode)) return 'Insufficient space for this spell. Please contact your Aethernet server.'; int address_id = AethernetAllocateSpace(spell_data.size); Portal portal = AethernetOpenToPower(address_id); spell_data.instructions >> portal; spell_data.emotional_marker >> portal; spell_data.power >> portal; portal.close(); GrimIncants.seal(portal,'h'ath fithagan fithagan'); SusanSecure.twiceSeal(portal,'so mote it be'); H0pp3rMagic.thriceSeal(portal,'seriously be closed'); retcode = AethernetQuerySpell(address_id); if(!SUCCESS(retcode)) return 'There was an error compiling the spell. Please check the log files in the Aether.'; AethernetDisconnect(); return 'Spell successfully compiled.'; }  Like anyone, Pisces makes heavy use of libraries in her code. Seems like a lot of those libraries come from her friends. quote:else return 'Invalid world. Where the gently caress are you?' quote:Spell spell = AethernetBeginIncant(address_id); quote:function cast_spell(spell_name, world, target){ quote:if(!spell.targetInRange()) return 'Target out of range. Move closer.' quote:retcode = spell.execute(); quote:AethernetDisconnect(); . . . . . function cast_spell(spell_name, world, target){string retcode = AethernetConnect( 'Server;Server=OSPublicUse;Uid=Pisces;Pwd=' + SusanSecure.Encode(const.pass)); if(!SUCCESS(retcode)) return 'Could not connect to Aethernet.'; int address_id = AethernetGetAddressFromName(spell_name); Spell spell = AethernetBeginIncant(address_id); if(world == 'physical world') spell.world = WORLD.PHYS; else if(world == 'web') spell.world = WORLD.WEB; else if(world == 'aether') spell.world = WORLD.AETHER; else return 'Invalid world. Where the gently caress are you?' spell.target = target; if(!spell.checkValidTarget()) return 'Invalid target.' if(!spell.targetInRange()) return 'Target out of range. Move closer.' if(spell.powerLevel < spell.power) return 'Insufficient power. You need to add another matter or motive to your aether area to cast this spell.'; if(spell.mm_type != spell.mm_type) return 'This spell is being powered by an incompatible matter or motive.'; retcode = spell.execute(); if(!SUCCESS(retcode)) return 'There was an error casting the spell. Please check the log files in the Aether.'; AethernetDisconnect(); return 'Successful cast.'; }  We re-learn the first principles of magic, and come out of it six thoughts and feelings richer.  Our dreams are to the west of our webship. The world around me shifts wildly.I think I'm going one way, but then I end up eating cucumber sandwiches with my second grade teacher. Dreams are hard to navigate. You can't force them to obey. You need to shape them with other dreams.  The dream puzzle is relatively painless - we identify a dream that we can use to redirect this one, and we "spend" it to continue. In this case, the game would accept Swimming Through Clouds or Warm And Safe.  If we use a dream other than our starting dreams, we also get a thought or feeling as a bonus.  A classic nightmare, but someone who's discovered the secret truth of the universe can't be that stupid. I touch my mind with perfect understanding.I become aware that I cannot read the words because words always change in dreams and that I graduated from high school years ago. I leave the classroom. In the dream You've discovered the secret truth of the universe, I find the thought: clever  The difficulty is less dealing with cats and more dealing with cats in a way that doesn't make us feel bad. Napping in a sunbeam would work, for example, but we can also invoke the cat's natural rival. The dogs are not intimidated by catsand they are intrepid explorers. Together, we use their space ship to get to the kitchen. But they cannot have gingerbread. Gingerbread has nutmeg and nutmeg is bad for dogs. In the dream Riding with an army of dogs to see the aurora borealis in every galaxy, I find the feeling: happy?  No prices for the solution to this one. Thank goodness.There are mangoes. Mangoes are so much better than celery. In the dream Eating mangoes, I find the feeling: content  Sunbeam doesn't work here, so we swim up to say hello. I cannot flybut I can swim and that is enough like flying in some strange places to reach the stars.  Clearing every dream lets us turn our remaining dreams into their thoughts or feelings as well. You can lock yourself out if you haven't found every dream, but other than that there's no need to play with the order of operations here. This also unlocks The Ocean to the north, and The Fire to the south.  There is no small pleasure in sweet water.- Ovid He probably meant freshwater.But the Sea is sweet to me. Cool and endless. I love to sail out. I could sail out, and never return. It is...so tempting. I realize that I am dedicating a great deal of energy to resisting that temptation.  The Pier is our first reusable resource sink - if we find resources that motivate us to keep fighting, we can leave them here for a nice chunk of resilience.  For example, we could get Harvey to follow us here.  Having Harvey around gives us more resilience than any of the memory batches we repaired.  To the south, we find the stick to the Ocean's carrot. This is where the flames live in my mind.When moments hurt as much as this one did, ==> when they leave puckered, seeping wounds across your life, they become a part of you. You can ignore them during the day. But they always come back at night.  Unlike the Ocean, the Fire isn't repeatable. We could use our breathing exercises to get it under control, but we might want to hang on to that, and our Distant feeling will work just as well, I pull back from the fear.I use time and distance to give myself perspective. That helps. That helps quite a bit. Gained 10 Resilience.  This might be more than remembered trauma, then. We don't have spells for this, but we are Curious. I examine the flames.I watch how they move. Where they move differently from how a normal fire should. They look almost like a pair of eyes.   Kill it. Kill it!  Crap. We don't want to trade 30 resilience for 10 firepower. I get out of there as fast as thought can carry me. Fleeing will shunt us back to our dreams to catch our breath.  We'll try talking. It's only information - it can't hurt us. I know you. Accessing log file 41.133.88Location - DwHiScl ==> Darwin High School Incident - Rogue open sorcerer (handle- Pisces) and unknown affiliate destroyed company property (BAL/E v2.7) and interfered with mote farm 521 (DwHiScl). Correction - You know a previous version of me. Mote farm...that was a high school. You were harvesting fear from children. Affirmative. And when I found out, you tried to kill me. Affirmative. And then Ha...and then my student killed you. Correction - Your associate destroyed me.Kill implies sapience. What are you doing here? I need a minute. I stop talking. I look away from the eyes.BAL/E hangs passively in the air, watching me. That makes sense. He's only programed to respond when someone tries to move through his wall. Someone put him here to trap me. They tried to kill me. And they failed, so they tried to make sure I couldn't come back. I have a firewall in my head.Malware has been installed in my brain. That's horrific. But at least now I know what's going on.  BAL/E has a remarkable amount of dialogue for something placed here expressly to screw with us. We'll start with his readme and work our way down.  I don't want to know what court would protect the IP rights to this thing. Who put you here? BAL/E is proprietary software of the Excellence Corporation. I want a name. BAL/E is proprietary software of the Excellence Corporation. Useless.Access configuration. You are not authorized to configure this program. Just like I'm not authorized to leave my brain. Affirmative. Stop loving trapping me in my brain. Negative.Not that much dialogue, it seems. If we want to get past BAL/E, we need to push our way past. For that, we need allies. We picked up just the feeling from the dream puzzle. I decide to trust them.I lay down my trust, and it forms a bridge. I go towards my friends. Used trust. Unlocked path to Friendship  Behind the bridge are our friends, from both before and after our fall. Susan's proven herself viciously competent, so we'll start with her. Susan is here.It's not really her, she returned to her own mind. But it's still good to see her. Any advice? You go to therapy, don't you?I suspect any thoughts you derive from that will be particularly valuable. There are some issues that only professional help can address.  Our feelings are south of the webship. They're not our area of expertise, but our dreams once again give us the resources to start working through them. I don't like feeling things, because it doesn't feel safe. ==> Feelings come with barbs and sharp edges.But feeling safe and secure helps me relax for a moment and turn my attention inward. Used safe. Gained 20 Resilience. Unlocked Feelings  We're rewarded with three paths that we still can't actually use. We'll start east and work our way around.   Prophesied: suppressedrageTo get in, we need to solve the boss-tier word search puzzle. . . . . .  Fortunately, Omaxim is a very powerful spell. The game will still let us use the Omini version if we want the challenge, but these puzzles are a bastard and a half. I pause a moment, and try to discern how I feel.I find a feeling. I discover that I am seething with suppressed rage. Great. Unlocked Seethe Gained 20 Resilience.  Chains of self-control and shame lash my anger to the ground.Below them, my anger trembles. It is taking a lot of energy to keep my anger suppressed like this. If I release it, I would gain more Resilience and might be able to use it. But then I would have to deal with my anger.  We're on a Dream/Kind playthrough, so we never really learned how to live with our anger over the course of the game. If we want to learn to accept it, we need backup. Susan and I methodically unwind the chains.Neither of us are very good at wrangling them, but we're dedicated to the job. Losing the chains is a relief. Gained 30 Resilience.  She is painful to contain in my mind. ==> It's hard to blame her for that, the poor wounded thing, but this state is not acceptable.Even then, it's not a pleasant process. In fact, this is why we held on to those breathing exercises. I close my eyes.I breathe in. I breathe out. I relax my shoulders. I relax my face. I breathe in. I breathe out. I repeat this sixty times. I open my eyes. The wolf has settled down. She is still tense, breathing heavily, and marked by chains. But she is under control. Used breathing exercises. Gained 20 Resilience.  She has potential. As they are, our scrabblings wouldn't do much to harm BAL/E, but if we indulged our anger enough it would stand a chance at killing BAL/E outright. Without stoking our anger a great deal, the best we could hope for was to push past BAL/E without dealing with it, but feeding the black wolf might not be the best for our emotional well-being. Should we prioritize building our resilience, or prioritize purging the malicious AI haunting our brain? Also, it's too late for us to act on this, but just for fun: Is the Plan a bad thing, actually, or is the Plan a good thing, actually?
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Mar 27, 2021 05:34
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Build resilience and the plan is good.
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Mar 27, 2021 06:21
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AweStriker posted:Build resilience and the plan is good.
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Mar 27, 2021 07:29
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Feed our anger, enact The Plan.
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Mar 27, 2021 07:45
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The Lone Badger posted:enact The Plan. Just to be clear here, we already did this. Pisces casted and delivered her prophecies. The wheels of fate are set in motion. And you can't unring that bell. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Mar 27, 2021 |
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Mar 27, 2021 08:05
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Find the white wolf and feed that. The Plan is good. e: This might be jumping the gun a bit, but this is pretty clearly a 100% run or close to it. How do things change on a low% run? Like, the whole section at Delphi looks completely optional, and as you mentioned it's possible to not be able to dream completely. Can you get back to your head, find out you were supposed to deliver prophecies, and just go "gently caress it, up!  "
Dareon fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Mar 27, 2021 |
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Mar 27, 2021 13:06
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build our resilience, maybe The Plan wasn't the wisest idea
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Mar 27, 2021 14:20
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Build our resilience. I'm not going to weigh in on The Plan - regardless of how the Pisces of now feels about it, it's in motion and there's nothing she can do to stop it anymore. Plus, all things considered it seems to be largely explicitly aimed at granting BEL/S awareness, so it can't all be bad.
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Mar 27, 2021 15:46
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Dareon posted:This might be jumping the gun a bit, but this is pretty clearly a 100% run or close to it. How do things change on a low% run? Like, the whole section at Delphi looks completely optional, and as you mentioned it's possible to not be able to dream completely. Can you get back to your head, find out you were supposed to deliver prophecies, and just go "gently caress it, up! More to the point, and I think this is what you were getting at, just about everything not immediately above the Abyssal Plain is completely optional. As we'll see shortly, we have a whole lot of wiggle room on building enough resilience to rise unscathed - as long as you grab every memory, you can afford to miss some dreams (I suspect a lot of dreams) without missing crucial resilience. If you miss memories, though, it can easily derail your late game bad enough that you'll take a lot of damage when you rise. Like Open Sorcery 1, the late game's pretty unpleasant if you were inefficient in the early game. On my first attempt I didn't kill either webcrawler, I never sent the Roanake settlers anywhere (therefore no Unbabble and no Peep, even if I came back after hitting Fiddler's Green), and I didn't find The One Below. That meant I would never have been able to learn Rezrov (therefore no Susan at all), and every webship minigame had about twice the number of events. Had I played past Geisthome the Goblin Engine would have made things a bit easier, but I still would have been limping through pretty much the entire Web, and probably over half the Mind resources would have been locked off. Some players get so stuck with lovely webship parts that they hit Fiddler's Green and find themselves unable to travel anywhere without dying. Doopliss fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Mar 27, 2021 |
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Mar 27, 2021 16:22
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Wait, why does missing The One Below lock out rezrov?
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Mar 27, 2021 21:42
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cant cook creole bream posted:Wait, why does missing The One Below lock out rezrov?
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Mar 27, 2021 21:48
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  Welcome back. Last time, we discovered an Excellence-brand AI was responsible for the fire keeping us out of our mind, and we found a black wolf of pure anger that we might be able to use to kill it. That said, the wolf was rather feeble and neglected, and we weren't comfortable feeding our resentment enough to get it strong enough to kill BAL/E. Instead, we talk things over with Dr. Linden and dive back into our emotions.  Prophesied: perfectlyfine. . . . .  Our southern emotion is a pleasant change from the unpleasantness we've endured so far.  Typical.  The fog makes everything look the same.The fog makes everything feel cold. ==> pointless. I don't like the name of this place. I don't despair. I'm fine. Pisces is happy to ignore this screen, but that's probably not in anyone's interest. It seems like our dad might be able to talk us through this.  I'm pretty sure the Self-Awareness thought we picked up is literally the only thing that works here. I'm...I'm not fine. gently caress.  It just makes me feel weak.God, that's ableist of me. Depressed people aren't weak. They're dealing with poo poo most of us can't imagine. I can believe that about other people. It's just really hard for me to apply it to myself. Okay. Well. I've admitted I'm not okay. ==> I get the feeling I'm re-tracing steps I've taken before.I don't get Resilience points for that, I just get to stop being in denial. Now what? Now we can actually reach out to others for support. So that's a plus. Dad sits with me and holds me.Gained 30 Resilience.  The fog is a metaphor for the depression I suffered after I was burned.If I want to clear it away, I should try to retrace the steps I used to deal with it in my life. Wish I remembered what those were. There's some stuff in this room after all, though we'll need to thin the fog out more to get a proper look at it.  We just flood this screen with love and support. The fog has thinned, but it hasn't faded entirely.   Pisces! I sea you're doing swimmingly, but you cod do betta.I dolphinitely want to help Let minnow if you need me. Mullet over. Any fin is possible, don’t trout yourself! In some situations, I've changed the characters' text colour a bit to make them easier on the eyes when not on a black background. For H0pp3r, you get the authentic 255 magenta. H0pp3r grins and salutes.This knocks off his top hat and he performs a brief slapstick routine to recover it. Then he lopes after me.  H0pp3r is not the best emotional support, but he's also not really useful elsewhere. No offense, H0pp3r.  With the fog gone, we see a feeling and a wolf.  I vaguely remember a feel-good story that used to bounce around online. It was about white and black wolves as metaphors for goodness and evil.It was allegedly an old Cherokee legend. ==> But I recall reading an article debunking that, asserting the story was actually made up by a baptist preacher who thought some cultural appropriation would spice up his sermon. Anyway, I guess the imagery left an impression on me. But I don't believe in good and evil. So this must represent something else. In modern times it's mostly remembered as a meme, but whatever works for Pisces. There's not much we can do for her right now, so we'll grab the feeling and move on. I find a flower growing in the fog.It's small, but tenacious. Sometimes, when you're in pain, it helps you understand other people's pain. I find the feeling: empathy.  Prophesied: notgoodathappy. . . . .  I pause a moment, and try to discern how I feel.I find a feeling. I discover that I am not good at being happy. Okay. Fine. Unlocked Not Unhappy Gained 20 Resilience.  The gnats are too distracting for us to deal with the jugment toad, so we'll start with them.  This is another one we're not equipped to deal with on our own, but perhaps we can follow our mom's example. Mom is almost always busy.But if it's important, she'll drop anything to help me. I tell her it's important. She nods, tells her secretary she's leaving, and comes with me.  Mom takes out a flyswatter and starts systematically crushing the gnats one by one.She approaches them deliberately and particularly. Understands their side, speed, and flight pattern. And then she utterly crushes them. More appear, but my mother is tireless. She likes solving problems. Gained 10 Resilience.  Judgment Toad is an rear end in a top hat, but if it evaluates everything maybe we can point out that it's being unproductive.  Apparently not. As you'd expect, Judgment Toad has a lot of these - it'd be healthier not to go through them, but also, I find Judgment Toad hilarious. We're ahead of BAL/E anyway.  On April 13th, 2015 you tried to remember Angie Lucas' name and got it wrong and they had to correct you. On April 25th, 2007 a waiter told you to enjoy your meal and you said "you too." On October 8th, 2002 someone waved to you across a crowd and you waved at them.They were not actually waving at you. On January 10th, 2013 you posted something on the Internet that was wrong and someone you respected corrected you. On August 16th, 2001 you pushed a door that had a pull sign on it.Alright, that one's a bit trivial even by my standards. On November 3rd, 1994 you were late to class and everyone stared at you when you came in. On October 20th, 1997 you were talking to Professor Richmond and mixed up Java and Javascript.It starts looping after that, though it'll still keep dinging us for one resilience each time. Turns out dwelling on past mistakes doesn't actually make them more palatable.  Chanelling our contentedness gives us a slight profit, even after going through the Judgment Toad's dialogue. The dog bed is the more interesting prize, though.  I lead the white wolf out of Sadness, through the dark hollow of my Feelings into a faint state of Satisfaction.I lead her to the dog bed, which she immediately seems to recognize. She circles once and then lays down with a relieved flop. She looks at me and wags her tail twice. Then she puts her head down to rest. Gained 30 Resilience. Now that the white wolf is more comfortable, we can feed her similar to the black wolf.  Feeding the black wolf increases its damage output, but feeding the white wolf is a simple resilience buff.  We can also pet the wolf, obviously, though we don't have the time for the full-time wolf-petting to really get our resilience up there.  For that, we need to fetch the beneficiaries of our kindness.  Our time with Peep was short, but it's good to have him.  We've been through a bit more with Mathias. Mathias signs: "What a powerful creature."He searches his pockets, finds a piece of jerky, and feeds it to the wolf, bit by bit. The wolf's tail wags wildly. Gained 30 Resilience.  We're still scared to feed the black wolf too much, but we still have that anger, and we can still direct it against a worthy target. After all, isn't that the point of this whole journey? Sometimes when she bares her teeth it's a smile.And sometimes, it's a threat. And sometimes, it's both. The black wolf howls. And then bounds through my mind.  In normal play, this needs to kill BAL/E outright - getting the wolf that powerful means doing a Ruthless playthrough, and feeding absolutely everything possible to the black wolf. There's a cheese that allows you to kill BAL/E on Dream/Kind playthroughs as well, but we've chosen not to resort to that.  Firepower reduced: 50 As far as Pisces is concerned, "which wolf wins" isn't the right question.  The last screen in our Mind is our self-concept. It's not pretty.  Let's do something about that. Very little works here, but Dr. Linden gave us a tool that will.  Given that Pisces' beliefs about being broken is what let BAL/E nearly kill her back in Darwin High School, this might be about as much as we can hope for right now.  I am delicate,but I won first place in a race through Hell. So I'm also awesome. Used triumph. Gained 50 Resilience. This is our reward for the Hell race. We get variants of this feeling based on how well we did in the race, but 50 makes it the most productive single event we can do in our mind.  This is a somewhat trickier one. Strength would do, but after everything we did on our way up here we probably owe it to ourselves to acknowledge ourselves as kind. I am mean,but I am also kind. A bit of a paradox, am I. Used empathy. Gained 30 Resilience.  This one will accept any of our remaining thoughts. We're clever and creative, and both of those would help us with being lost, but I'm not sure those are what defined us during the game. I am lost.but I am also determined. I will search until I find a way home. Used determined. Gained 20 Resilience.  With this, we've explored our mind fully. We could still feed miscellaneous stuff to the white wolf, but we're pretty much on a victory lap at this point.  Oh, fine. I guess we'd better do something about Brody.  Pisces has come far enough to give Brody a bit of trust, and this might help us move on. Brody approaches the wolf.The wolf watches him with suspicion, ears partially back. He holds his hand out. She smells him. He offers to pet her. She lets him, but growls after a little while, and he backs off. She lets him sit near her, and occasionally reach out to pet her for a little while at a time. Gained 20 Resilience.  We feed the white wolf our creativity as well, just so we can say we doubled BAL/E's firepower. Now there's nothing left for us in our mind, nor in the Web.   As we rise, BAL/E's firepower and our resilience take center stage.  They decrease in 10s, each at the same speed.  The decrease stops when BAL/E reaches 50 firepower.  The next thing we know, we're being rescued from this extremely close battle. That's fine - we can deal with BAL/E in the unspecified future.  And we're out. My eyes are crust-caked, wincing in the sunlight.Everything looks so sharp. ==> So real. I sit up. I try to sit up.I discover I am very, very weak. I decide not to sit up. As I shift, something falls off my neck. A crystal. ==> A polished rose quartz. ==> I turn my head and see another quartz in a glass of water on the bedside table. ==> A magical ICU. I realize someone is sitting beside me.  Yeah. He touches the laptop in front of him, then snaps it closed as an afterthought. Susan called me. She said you were going to wake up.You remember me? You're my student. Ha.Yeah. Yeah I am. I can't believe you're awake. Where are we? He's been taking care of you. I think I hear seagulls. You said we're by the shore? Yeah. I mean. Of course we are.You want to see the ocean? I do. He helps me sit up.  And that's the game. We achieved our goals in the Sea++, put ourselves back together as best we could, and even did some unrelated good on our way back up. Now we get to see what kind of world is waiting for us.  We figured most of this out from context, but we do get a proper timeline.  Normally I'd say that recovery is never easy, but we'll come back to this later.  We saw very little of H0pp3r through the game - he only even showed up in our mind because we read his book of computer puns at the University of Phoenixes. Still, it's good to have him.  Susan fared better than us, with only a month unconscious and fewer memories lost permanently. Seems like Susan is indispensable enough at her job that they wouldn't dream of cutting her off for a month's sick leave.  It looks like Pisces doesn't want to get too close to whatever her plan wrought.  Janet got one line of dialogue total, but we got six motes out of it, so I can't be too upset.  I have no idea how real Euros is and how much ability he has to influence the physical world, but it's good to have friends.  Assuming this is all taking place before Open Sorcery 1 kicks off, Pisces is making extremely good time on her recovery. I suppose she was only comatose for a few months.  In addition to getting a more pleasant epilogue screen, sabotaging the Excellence Corporation's activities in the Green also dropped BAL/E's firepower.  The Plan was always pretty drat bold - Pisces took it for granted that she could rekindle her memories, retrieve the prophecies and deliver them all, despite starting from pretty much nothing. Pisces was correct.  That's an okay name. I guess.  Pisces has enough tragedy without two dead parents, apparently.  Here's where we get epilogues for the rest of the nonsense we got up to over the course of the game.  As we'd expect from a fairy noble, Mathias sends us the wordiest letter. No word on hearing aid magic, which I assume means he's going to be deaf long-term. Making disabilities magically go away isn't exactly a theme of this game. Next up is a live robin, bouncing around impatiently. I suppose he followed the mail here?   We tell him to be brave. It got him in trouble last time, but that's no reason to give up.  A package made of bull kelp. I assume this is from the sirens rather than Carol the Anemone Monster - they did a lot for us, and they still seem to remember us fondly.  And don't you forget it.  Did we... Give Hani our contact information? Do his spells have surveillance DRM?  I assume this is a bug, as we definitely weren't patient with Lovely. Canonically, I guess Lovely found it in her to confront the troll about his diet even without us doing her puzzle properly.  They remembered us, and they have our mailing address. Still not entirely comfortable about the "stealing from a dragon" thing, but we did what we had to do.  I'm starting to think the Lost Soul's Diner might not have a viable business model, if they even need a viable business model.  And that was Open Sorcery: Sea++. It took us to a bunch of places, and they were largely delightful. I handled a lot of the raw efficiency stuff, but y'all still solved pretty much all the puzzles that could conveniently be left at the end of updates, as well as finding happy endings for most of the choices that weren't out-and-out puzzles. Thank you all so much for playing along with me, or just reading. I get a lot out of these purely for selfish reasons, since it forces me to pay attention to the text in a way I generally don't. For those who picked up this game on their own, go leave a review - some idiot left a negative review complaining solely that the Abyssal Plain had too many screens in it, and they must be drowned out. I only ever stumbled across this series because the first one had a bizarrely high proportion of positive reviews. I now return to lurking for the foreseeable future. Doopliss fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Mar 28, 2021 |
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Mar 28, 2021 05:36
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That was a good game. Good ending. Lots of great moments, from the cool, to the sweet, to the funny. I'm glad we did a nice playthrough. I can't wait for the obvious next game in the series where BEL/S and Pisces team up to fight the Excellence Corporation and defeat capitalism.
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Mar 28, 2021 06:51
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Doopliss posted:For those who picked up this game on their own, go leave a review - some idiot left a negative review complaining solely that the Abyssal Plain had too many screens in it, and they must be drowned out. I only ever stumbled across this series because the first one had a bizarrely high proportion of positive reviews. I now return to lurking for the foreseeable future.[/i] I agree. This is a great game and it makes me a bit sad, that there are only 19 reviews on the steam page. Junpei posted:That was a good game. Good ending. Lots of great moments, from the cool, to the sweet, to the funny. I'm glad we did a nice playthrough. Maybe the reason Pisces doesn't want that firewall extended to her is because she is a bit wary of them now. If a further game happens it can be a buddy cop drama with opposing elements who need a while to adapt to each other. Also, when I played, I completely missed that Harvey is Decker. In retrospect, that's a bit obvious, when he brings Janet around. But to be fair, I didn't remember that this was the name of the woman in Open Sorcery. Also another great reference is that the Hungry Ghost only came to Darwin highschool, because Pisces enraged her. Remember how she kept that yearbook? That's how she found them! I do feel kind of bad for her, since her actual enemy wasn't even around and she just got bounced by the firewall instead. Pisces probably feels bad when she figured out what happened on November 1st, while she wasn't even around.
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Mar 28, 2021 07:18
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I thought the Hungry Ghost went to the school because a distracted Pisces mentioned that they're great places to farm Fear.
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Mar 28, 2021 07:23
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Does the "spicy tea" link go to a recipe or something like that?
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Mar 28, 2021 07:30
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Thank you for the LP! It was truly a lovely experience, save poor Ringo's name being ruined.
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Mar 28, 2021 07:39
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The Lone Badger posted:I thought the Hungry Ghost went to the school because a distracted Pisces mentioned that they're great places to farm Fear. Probably both. That's what BAL/E was originally doing after all. Is every school in that universe such a potent target? Because that School is really lucky to have two strong sorceress on their payroll, who also teach it to various pupil. Come to think about it, there's no real (in universe) reason why Susan wasn't around in the first game. Maybe Darwin High did not keep her employed after her sudden absence and she's just burning up her savings to support Pisces' recovery. Leraika posted:Thank you for the LP! It was truly a lovely experience, save poor Ringo's name being ruined.
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Mar 28, 2021 07:43
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cant cook creole bream posted:Probably both. That's what BAL/E was originally doing after all. Is every school in that universe such a potent target? Because that School is really lucky to have two strong sorceress on their payroll, who also teach it to various pupil. Didn't Pisces get a job there specifically because she realised something was hosed up and wanted to get close to try and fix it? BAL/E infests school -> Pisces joins staff -> BAL/E defeated -> Pisces cast into Deep Web, mentions DarwinHS to Hungry Ghost -> Hungry Ghost infests school -> Ghost destroyed by BEL/S.
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Mar 28, 2021 08:22
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The Lone Badger posted:Didn't Pisces get a job there specifically because she realised something was hosed up and wanted to get close to try and fix it? Yes, that sounds about right. But there was a long while between "BAL/E defeated" and "Pisces cast into deep web", where she stuck around as a teacher in Darwin and became friends with Susan and Harvey. He was still a child back then. After the attack she lived several years wheelchair bound and could not get rid of the firey pain in her leg. Now at the beginning of the game, when she did that deep dive to cast and deliver the prophecies (because she heard a prophecy that she had to do it) BAL/E seized the chance to get out of its sleep mode and tried to kill her more directly.
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Mar 28, 2021 08:34
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I knew nothing about this series going in and I'm glad for that because it let me experience everything fully. The writing is really fantastic, thanks for showing it off so well.
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Mar 28, 2021 10:00
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cant cook creole bream posted:Now at the beginning of the game, when she did that deep dive to cast and deliver the prophecies (because she heard a prophecy that she had to do it) BAL/E seized the chance to get out of its sleep mode and tried to kill her more directly. The impression I got is that Excellence hit her with a targeted spell because they heard about the 'destroy the world' thing, and then went on to spin up a new instance of BAL/E and put it around her brain just to make sure.
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Mar 28, 2021 10:05
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Absolutely loved this, and just like the first game, this LP makes me wanna pick it up to see all the things we never did.
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Mar 28, 2021 11:55
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GrayGriffin posted:Does the "spicy tea" link go to a recipe or something like that? Doopliss fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Mar 28, 2021 |
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Mar 28, 2021 15:26
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Very introspective and an excellent read. I'm sure Pisces and her friends will continue to fight the good fight. Now I kind of want to see an LP of the first game hahaha.
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Mar 28, 2021 19:21
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