Soulgemmed Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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griefseeded2016-05-22 11:25 pm
soulmods) wrote in griefseeded2016-05-22 11:25 pm
EVENT WRAP-UP
Hey, everyone! This month's event required a massive amount of detective work on the part of the players and contained a boss battle with multiple possible endings, and you know what that means! We're overdue for an event wrap-up post. While March's mystery was mostly isolated to that boss fight, though, a lot of what's been revealed in May ties in to the plot of the game as a whole. Because of that, we cannot post a detailed account of what every hint means. We're leaving that up to you, the players. Throughout the course of this event, there has been an abundant amount of theorizing; said theorizing has mostly occurred in scattered plurks, however, meaning that it became easy for certain players to be left out. As a result, we're putting this up as a place where everyone can easily access the information in a more organized format. |
SWEET LOOT
YO HERE'S SOME THINGS THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
THE SEVEN PIECES OF LOOT
> A group of notebooks, one of which has a sticky note wondering about a town where Witches can’t manifest.
> Two photographs: one of a young girl with pigtails hugging an older woman, and the second of that same girl placing a crown of flowers onto the head of a man. Both take place in a field of flowers.
> A video (saved on a disc) of characters speaking to each other from early March, through electrical devices hijacked by Cyborg Xpress to try and communicate with the magi in Nyoi-Cho.
> A photograph of the monster that appeared in March.
> A file containing photographs of the first batch of magi to arrive in early January.
> A file containing photographs from April’s flood. One house in the magi district becomes slowly more warped and sinister-looking throughout the series.
> Photographs and information on former Cyborg Xpress magi Miki Morikawa and Hoshiko Ohka.
JUST BEFORE THE BOSS
> After all seven pieces of loot were collected (see above), the mechanical insects in the middle path and the mechanical beast in the lower path disappeared. Maps floated down from the ceiling depicting Nyoi-cho and two other nearby settlements.
> The console in the weather room then allowed the users to access three files. The first was a diary entry of a girl talking about her friend Ayase. The second was a video of a girl with an eyepatch videotaping her home city, including a girl she called Ayase (who looked a lot like Sachiko Hatsu, a girl from Cyborg Xpress, the magi team from earlier this year). The third was a text file surmising that a witch could be created if nobody could get to her in time to stop her Nightmare.
> Two of these pieces of loot (the diary entry and the video) appear to be very personal items to someone. Chiaki surmised that they are the sort of thing someone might take if they were running away from home and had nowhere to go.
BOSS BATTLE OPENING CUTSCENE
> The first runes (in red) read “CONGRATULATIONS!”
> A screen replayed deaths that had happened within the dungeon, most notably: Shinoa decapitating Madoka, Shinoa being sprayed with bullets in the crossfire of a fight between Bonnie and Etna, Dave decapitating Pokey, Chiaki being burned alive by Azula, and Lenny being speared by Etna. Other deaths were included in this montage.
> The second runes (handwritten) read “HOW FAR ARE YOU WILLING TO GO FOR INFORMATION.” It has been theorized that this could be a taunt; a large number of deaths in the dungeon were caused in pursuit of the “loot,” which was information.
> A few highlighted letters can be rearranged to spell “AMONG YOU.” It is not yet clear what this means. It may have been included to sow dissent in the magis’ ranks.
FINAL BOSS: DESCRIPTION
> The boss is a “massive figure that’s rooted itself to the wall” and “appears to be made up of flower petals.” Vines extended from the boss throughout the room, and it could use these to attack.
> The boss generally did not attack unless provoked. It did not respond to the name “Ayase.”
> Madoka attempted to heal the boss, and Sollux took on some of its pain. This led to the first of the three win conditions for the boss battle.
> Madoka then showed the boss the photographs of the girl with her parents in the flowers, and the boss responded by reaching out to them. This led to the second of the three win conditions for the boss battle.
> Chiaki peeled back some of the flower petals, which led to the third and final of the three win conditions for the boss battle. It is not yet known what result this action had.
FINAL BOSS: SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
> The magi entered the room; after the door slammed behind them, they were confronted with videos of their deaths and murders inside the dungeon.
> This led some to begin attacking the boss immediately. Some wanted to burn it down, while others began firing, leading the boss to retailate by attacking with its vines.
> Bonnie and Chiaki tried sneaking up on the boss, but this effort was thwarted by the hail of attacks; by this point, the magi figured out that the boss was not actively attacking them.
> Kakyoin called Sachiko on his cellphone and explained the situation. She identified the boss as a witch and told the assembled that there was no other alternative but to put it out of its misery. Kakyoin offered to mercy kill the witch himself.
> An argument broke out. During the ensuing discussion, the three win conditions listed above were met.
THINGS LEARNED FROM SACHIKO
> Sachiko noted that Witches do not create or dwell in manmade structures, but feed on the suffering of others. She suggested that the dungeon could be manmade.
> When learning that people had died in the dungeon, Sachiko asked if anybody had a mark on their necks.
> Sachiko noted that the long-term surveillance of the magi was likely the work of a human, as Witches are not known for long-term plans.
> Sachiko took a reading of the being, and found that it was weak and growing weaker by the moment; the creature was on its last legs. She was confused how a witch powerful enough to claim so many magi could be reading as so weak.
> According to Sachiko, as long as a magi is not cut off from the source of her magic, she can come back from most things. On the other hand, a Witch will only come back as a monster. Also, Witches “cause nothing but suffering and despair; they feed off of it.” Sachiko also implied that a Witch is (or can be) a former magi.
> Sachiko recognized the name Ayase, who turns out to be her sister. Sachiko had not heard from Ayase in a very long time; their parents had separated, and Ayase had gone with their father. They had moved very far away, and lost contact with Sachiko and her mother.
> The runes can be found on the girl’s soul gem’s ring forms.
> As the maps have runes on them, they were likely not created by a human.
OTHER MISCELLANEOUS DUNGEON CURIOSITIES
> There is a bed with a pair of handcuffs on it in room 14, the room with broken glass on the floor.
> No deaths were shown from within the darkened room 3/4, which was the room with fleshy walls.
> It has been revealed that following the boss battle, returning through the dungeon through the darkened room 3/4 will alter the maps.
LINGERING QUESTIONS
> Who is the creature on the wall? Is it the girl with the eyepatch?
> Why is she here? Was she kept here, as the handcuffs on the bed might suggest, or did she flee here, as the personal items found in the files might suggest?
> Is there a reason why the dungeon was revealed to the magi now? Was this a test to see if the magi would kill another magi for more information, as the the question in the boss's opening cutscene seems to posit? ("How far are you willing to go for information?")
> Is this girl a witch, a nightmare, or something else? (A "witchmare"?)
> Is it possible to get to the other two settlements in the map, perhaps by train?
> What questions am I forgetting?? Probably a lot of them, right?
But anyway that's all I got for now. THEORIZE, MAGI.
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The one thing that's forgotten about all this is that the elevator still isn't working, and who knows where that leads to? Also, the question of why the magi weren't compelled by outside forces to go into the dungeon exists. Everyone went in by choice and went in multiple times, not knowing for sure that anything was down there.
So you know, how far are you willing to go? :V
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Some other things to note!
> The girl in the photographs found in room 14 is said to be no one recognisable in Nyoi-cho, though the photos are taken in the park of Nyoi-cho. She has black hair in pigtails and brown eyes, and is about 6-8 years old.
> She is confirmed to not be Ayase.
> My guess is she was kept in the dungeon for whatever reason, to try and force a witch to form of a nightmare. Is she a Magi??? Is she still young? The flower creature reacted to the photos of this girl; are they the same person?
> It's possible that both the diary entry and the video in Noroi-cho were both the work of the eyepatch girl, but there's nothing that proves either way.
> The map depicts Nyoi-cho, Noroi-cho, and Tsukudo-cho! The smallest town, against the shoreline is Nyoi-cho. To the west is Tsukudo-cho, and to the north is Noroi-cho.
> Where is Chusei-shi, if it's meant to be a neighboring town to Nyoi-cho?
> Bonnie is a poop face and we should blow her up.
Map Details
Noriu Cho says: "Lost to the witches."
Tsukudo Cho says: "Lost contact."
Nyoi Cho says: "Evacuation zone."
My current theory is that Nyoi Cho is a target for evacuation from this city that was lost to the witches, with the barrier and Nightmares being meant to prevent new witches from appearing. Why we're here, though...
WITCHMARE TRENDS
For new joiners and future debates on pacifism, here're some trends I've noticed of past Witchmares to aid decision-making on how to deal with future instances.
OCCURRENCE
> Witchmares have been bosses every month since March, to the date of this post (May.)
NIGHTMARE OR WITCHMARE?
> It is currently impossible to tell for sure until its defeat: Nightmares do not release the aforementioned person + not-soul-gem thing.
> An boss event with unprecedented circumstances tends to be an indicator that the boss is not a normal Nightmare.
> Nightmares are established to be: limited to an area within a barrier, and unable to physically change things outside that barrier. E.g. Febuary's Nightmare had a dungeon solely limited to one area, Magi had to enter it to fight. VS April's Witchmare flooded the town, and physically transported the Magi from within the school to outside. It seemed to move freely through the town without being limited to one specific spot.
> ^So, if it doesn't fulfill those conditions, it's probably a Witchmare.
FIGHT / MERCY?
> Witchmares that only fight in defense have been shown to require a non-violent resolution for the best endings. (e.g. March, May's Witchmare was only attacked for one turn but its response text was "an attempt to sweep the magi off their feet", explicitly a reaction without intent to harm.)
> Conversely, a Witchmare that immediately attacks without provocation (May) required straightforward fighting to defeat.
> Boss Battles preceded by hidden messages, runes needing to be translated etc. have so far favored non-violent solutions. (e.g. March, May)
> For March and May, violence resulted in some signal that the approach was incorrect (Mar: NPC hostages died, May: Witchmare explicitly said to react "as if in terrible pain".) I don't quite remember the language used in April and whether it's similar to May, so I'm unsure about this point.
> I believe some mod mentioned somewhere that the April Witchmare was purposefully different from March and May's? I forgot if that was in reference to the crab or the actual Witchmare though, correct me if I'm wrong. Therefore we might want to be careful when referencing April's event in our theories.....???