3rd Day - Beldr
The next morning everyone’s pretty resigned to what they have to do today. The Laplace Mail quickly arrives, and there’s only one item this time:
GGGGGGood morning. Here is todday’s NEWS.
1. At 6:00PM in Minato-ku Aoyama Cemetery, Beldr the immortal will be revived. Over 300 casualties will be effected.
[][]ve a N[]ce day.
The crew’s shocked at the number of victims being prophesied and decide to spend until sunset searching for a way out of the lockdown. Then Keisuke walks up, asking if he’s interrupting something. He explains his problem: yesterday he was able to help Midori form a contract and summon demons, but afterwards her death clock decreased when she swore that she was going to help people. He says that she wouldn’t listen to him and that at this rate she’ll die tomorrow. Even though they have their own problems the crew agrees to help him, and Keisuke starts going right ahead to officially register his COMP with our group. Atsuro protests that their own death clocks read 0 but Keisuke insists that he’s no longer concerned about that. He explains that he admires how we held on to life, and he wants to take after our example. So he joins up, his death clock drops to 0 like ours, and off we go to resume our search for a way out and to see if we can talk Midori down from her “must save people” crusade.
Keisuke joins at Lv. 18 (I don’t know if joining levels are set in stone or dependent on what the other members happen to have) and of course he lacks both the skills and demons he had yesterday. Magic and Agility seem to be his stat focuses. Not really the most ideal set up as his Vitality is left rather lacking, but hey, we can’t say no to a fourth leader, and he’s got the highest Speed of the whole crew so he’ll get to act a lot.
Since Keisuke joins us naked, so to speak, I had to update my team a bit. In the course of this I fused two important demons. The first is Kikuri-hime who is a medical powerhouse. In addition to being a Megami she’s the first demon available with the multi-healing Media spell and the revival spell Recarm. Her Magic’s high as well, so she’s a good offensive powerhouse for this part of the game too. Next is King Frost, our first Tyrant. Tyrants have an incredibly useful Racial Skill called Tyranny. What this does is not only restore some MP to the team at the end of a battle, but it also knocks the targeted team further back in the turn queue. Very, very handy since ways to replenish MP mid-battle are hard to come by. Additionally, King Frost is the first demon I have that’s labeled as being unique. Anything having this designation means that you can only have one in your demon stock at a time.
Right now there are three scenes available, two of them being leftovers from yesterday. Actually make that four, for there’s a brief, timeless one where the crew encounters a man who mutters that humanity will only serve to betray God’s hopes. Hm, anyway, let’s check out Kanda (everything’s coming up Kanda lately) where Kaido and Shoji can be spoken to. Kaido’s scene has him pull Akira aside to talk to him privately. The topic of discussion? Well he starts out by asking us if Yuzu’s our girlfriend, which you can either “confirm” or deny. I guess Akira carries on the Megami Tensei Hero tradition of being a chick magnet because, uh...he just is, okay? Well anyway, Kaido’s got a girl on his mind, which we quickly suss out to be Mari, and he rather sheepishly asks us for advice on how to win over an older girl. Akira in his infinite casanova wisdom basically suggests waiting until she’s in some sort of jam so that he can leap in and save her like the gallant and badass fellow he is, thereby winning over the object of his affections! This is really a terrible idea that should backfire horribly, but Kaido’s got no other game so he thinks that’s a great idea. Before he leaves he threatens to rip Akira’s headphones right off his skull if he breathes a word of this to his friends. I don’t think he has to worry about that.
Now, on to Shoji’s scene. The crew tells her about the tunnel being blockaded too, which she takes as proof that the rumors that the lockdown’s meant to contain the demons are true. Oh she knows all about the demons, she explains, as apparently Gin explained what was going on to her after saving her from an attack. They ask if she knows anything about an immortal demon but she’s no use there. One thing she does know though, is the rumor that the world will perish in four days. Word of the death clock is starting to spread around, it seems. Shoji expresses frustration at not knowing what’s going on and vows to investigate even further.
That third scene I mentioned is of Honda in Ikebukuro expressing his disgust at the continuing government cover-up. Aside from that he does reveal that six months ago there was a reported explosion at Asakusa Temple in eastern Tokyo, and he thinks that there has to be a connection to the one the other day at Aoyama since the Shomonkai were apparently involved in both areas. Hm again.
On to the new stuff. We haven’t seen Gin in a while, so let’s go pay Omotesando another visit. Gin still seems distracted, and the reason is soon revealed to us. He says he just got back from the hospital to visit a friend of his, who unfortunately passed away because he couldn’t be treated properly with the place being low on supplies and the staff a wreck. After he leaves Yuzu says disbelievingly that something like that couldn’t possibly happen in Tokyo, but Atsuro says that with the lockdown up, they might as well be on a desert island.
Heading back north to Ikebukuro again (the crew must have really terrible blisters by now) Atsuro thinks he sees someone else he knows, but loses sight of them. He explains to Akira and Yuzu that he thinks it was an office worker he met online who disappeared after claiming he’d discovered a government cover-up. If it really was him at least he’s safe, Yuzu says.
It’s 11:30 now so might as well stop stalling and take on the mission that’s popped up. The crew spots some demons heading to a concert stage in Hibiya Park and when they reach the outdoor venue they find Haru singing what I assume to be the first few lines of Reset. Atsuro wonders why the demons seem to keep targeting her but Keisuke says to just focus on saving her for now. Again.
Mission 12
- All demons must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Haru cannot die
Haru’s up on stage and we’re starting all the way at the back row. Of course not all the demon teams have that same handicap - some of them get to start closer to the side steps leading up to it. So not only do the demons have a head start, but to get to the stage we also have to contend with the rows and rows of chairs that serve as obstacles. We need either Flight or Phantasma (Genma Racial Skill. Same as Flight only it doesn’t increase movement range) to skip over the seats to come to Haru’s aid ASAP. Of course the game throws out the dick move of spawning some new enemies close to the stage once you take out a few.
There are many Wendigo on this map (Keisuke lampshades their Degraded Boss status) and they’ll happily spam Bind to prevent us from going anywhere. It’s like the game really, really wants you to use Pyro Jack during this mission, as it’s the first demon to naturally know Fire Dance. Well too bad Pyro Jacks are weak to Ice! Fortunately the demons that actually do have a chance to reach Haru before we do, the Toubyou-led teams, are now fairly weaker than their brethren. Oh yeah, and this time the demons mention what they want with Haru - the “primal common tongue” to offer up to their master.
Completing the mission earns us 360 EXP and 210 macca.
Haru’s death clock rises from 0 to 1 as she thanks us for saving her again. She claims to not know why the demons are after her, but she does say off-handedly that maybe they come to grant her wish, at which point Akira can make thinks awkward for everyone present by suggesting that she’s suicidal. Regardless Atsuro says it’s too bad her sequencer isn’t working and Haru says that she really wants to get at the data inside it: a song that Aya left for her to finish. She says it’s in her head but she could work on it much more easily if the device was working. Oh well, as she says, so it goes. She invites Akira to chat with her again and leaves (spawning a little skit of Atsuro teasing Yuzu with the claim that she’s going to be a rival - see what I mentioned above). Keisuke advises us that we should be careful about using our demons around other people, even to save them, and the crew resumes their travels.
Back to Akasaka Tunnel where we fill Keisuke in on the rumored exit. We’re able to get into the tunnel itself this time, but once again we’re told to halt by the red-haired woman. She orders us to get back and to send the demons away, apparently under the assumption that we’re the cause of this whole mess and the crew protests that they’re only using their COMPs to stay alive. Since we didn’t summon our demons even at gunpoint the woman eventually lowers her weapon and says that she’ll trust us. However, just because she trusts the crew not to abuse their COMPs doesn’t mean that she’ll let us out of the lockdown, though she does confirm for once and for all that the government set it up in order to contain the demons.
She then gets a message over her radio and tells us some grim news: at Ueno Station a group of people tried to rush the SDF barricade and were fired upon, resulting in numerous casualties. She loses a bit of her composure and implores the crew to understand that while it was a difficult decision to implement the lockdown all of the resulting political, economic, and infrastructural upheaval that’s resulted is better than losing the entirety of Japan to demons, against which no conventional weapon has had an effect. Keisuke asks what her name is and she finally introduces herself as Captain Misaki Izuna of a special forces unit that was sent to investigate the demon outbreak. She asks for any information we may have, and the only topic of conversation that we can raise is the calamity that’s set to happen in four days. It doesn’t get us anywhere or undercover any new information. Izuna just says that she’s not at liberty to divulge anything and tells us to go back the way we came.
Back outside Keisuke says that they might as well face it: there’s no way out of the lockdown. When Atsuro protests he says that that doesn’t mean they should just give up. Instead, they should look for ways to end the lockdown, which means investigating the source of the COMPs in order to find a way to end the demon threat. Yuzu wonders if that would work when their death clocks are down to zero, and Keisuke agrees that for now they should focus on Beldr. Our next course of action will be to find someone who can provide us more information on him.
Compendium
- Yuki Jyorou
◊
- A type of yuki-onna ("snow woman") spirit that appears before travelers and sometimes hands them a baby to carry. The baby gradually becomes heavier and heavier, and if it is dropped the traveler will be killed. If he doesn't however, he will be given additional strength instead.
- Nekomata◊
- A cat yokai spirit that comes in two types: those that live in the mountains, and those that were originally domesticated cats that lived to a great age. The latter type can usually be identified by their split tails.
- King Frost◊
- The SMT wiki speculates that King Frost is derived from a Margaret Canby story about a kind frost king. In Megami Tensei lore he is the powerful yet naive king of Jack Frosts.
- Kikuri-hime◊
- A Japanese fertility, life, and love goddess, famous for her role in mediating Izanagi and Izanami after their disastrous reunion in the underworld. In fact her name is derived from kukuri, which means "to bring people together."
Comments
