LOL THIRD TIMES THE CHARM LETS HOPE THE FUCKING THREAD GOES UP
Best End Hint: Illusions in a mirror, how many similarities are there? A reporter, a ghost, a demon of the night. The key is in my reflection.
Today's Hint: Faded pictures of the mind. There is no road to the past. The volume will be my doorway.
[X] Pack up the books and head home. [X] "You've been so kind to me." Pause and fiddle with a few strands of Patchouli's hair.
You feel it's best for you to head home and get work done form there. While having Patchouli's help would be welcome, you can always come back when you have a question or need some help. You set about putting the books together in a stack, and turn your attention to the summoning tome laid out in front of you. You decide to pack it with the other books, and look up at Patchouli, sitting there with her nose buring in the book once again.
You lean forward over the table, an action that catches her attention. You reach out with one hand and sink your fingers into one of her long ponytails, running your fingers through it slowly.
"Thank you for your help, Patchouli. You've been a good friend." you say, ending with a soft smile. Patchouli seems caught between a mixture of embarrassment and surprise as she stutters slightly before replying.
"Aa-ah, Th-thank you Alice... I-" she trails off as she begins to stammer again, so instead she moves to hide her face with her book as you withdraw your hand. You can see she's already turned quite red even as she tries to hide herself. Without sparing too much time to prevent the situation from becoming more awkward, you quickly take up the books and float towards a window, coasting out through it while Shangai closes it behind you. Only now do you start feeling your nerves begin to act up, your arms shaking slightly. Your face feels a little hot too now, but there's no one to see you at least. You don't know what it is about Patchouli that makes you act in such a way, it just feels natural to be flirtatious with her. You're a bit concerned with how this would end up looking for Alice though if you took it too far and then left Alice with an enamoured Patchouli. Would Alice even remember anything that happened while you were in control?
You think to yourself more on the nature of your apparent life so far, and the life of Alice. You recovered memories in the library, and you realize that you've recovered Alice's knowledge of doll making, as well as remembering more things about Alice's life in the forest, her performances during festivals, and interactions with various other people. A faint memory of a girl who claimed to be a living doll. Medicine? Sounds suspicious to you, but where would you even find her? You don't have time to answer that question though, as you draw closer to Alice's house just in time to see Marisa climbing through the window. Damn it.
You speed up to get to the house, but Marisa has already gotten in, and you float in through the window she left open herself. She hears you land and turns around with a wide grin on her face.
"Yo, Alice!" she says, waving at you, then she notices the books in your arms. "Oh? A donation? Well, I'm not Reimu, but I accept your offer."
You give her a look of annoyance, then set the books down on the table. Seems she's been watching you, because when you set the books on the table, she notices Alice's grimoire sitting at the edge.
"That's unusual," she says, taking a step forwards. You hesitate, maybe a moment too long, before reacting, as Marisa snatches up the grimoire before Shanghai can reach it. She turns it over in her hands, looking at it.
"I don't think I've ever held this before actually, it feels pretty cool," she says, poking at the golden clasp that binds the book shut. She looks up at you. "Do you ever even use it for anything? Could I read it sometime?"
[] "Absolutely not." [] "Maybe, the day you stop stealing from me." [] "One day, Marisa, but not right now." [] "Get out." Take back the grimoire.
[x] "Absolutely not." [x] "Get out." Take back the grimoire.
"Aww, I just wanted a little peek," Marisa says as you snatch the grimoire back from her. "You get what you were looking for at the mansion?" she asks, completely ignoring the fact you told her to leave. You feel a headache coming on, though you know for sure it's out of annoyance rather than regaining memories.
"Yeah, I got some help getting set on my research," you say, turning towards the table full of books and setting the grimoire down. A Marisa-like hand appears from nowhere and snatches up a few of the scattered notes laying on the table, much to quick for you to react once again. You cast a dirty look at Marisa as she flips through the notes, nodding to herself.
"I'm just gonna bor-" she begins to say, however you cut her off by snatching the notes back.
"These are vital to my research Marisa. You're free to look at them as long as you stay here and leave them on the table, but you're not taking them anywhere."
Marisa looks a little upset at being strictly told what to do. You take your eyes of Marisa for a moment when you spot the still gaping hole in the window in the corner of the house. Damn it all.
"Tell you what," you say, turning back to the table and rifling through the notes, picking out whatever you can find that isn't of utter importance and you can afford to never see again. "You fix that hole in my house over there," you gesture towards the hole, and Marisa turns to look at it. "I'll let you have some of these notes now."
Marisa turns back to you, then turns towards the window again. With a quick incantation, the window flashes and the entire thing is restored. The slight burn marks on the wall remain however. Marisa turns back to you with an expectant gaze. Well then.
As promised, you hand her the notes, which she eagerly accepts with a tip of her hat.
"Not used to being given things directly," she says with a laugh. "Feels kind of weird."
Once she has the notes in her possession, tucked away, she bids farewell and hops back out the window, even despite the fact the door was unlocked. Oh well, at least she's out of your way for now. You return to the table and look over the books you got. You take a moment to decide what to get to first.
[] That summoning book looked interesting. [] Get back to research, you'll have time for other things later.
[X] Get back to research, you'll have time for other things later.
On the other hand, the summoning book might be useful to think of an unconventional approach to making an independent doll. Not interested in actually trying to summon anything.
[x] Get back to research, you'll have time for other things later.
You decide it's best to get back to the research, since it will still take a fair amount of time before you have any chance at producing results. The summoning book can wait. You turn your attention back to the stack of books, rifling through them to find one you can just barely read. Once you find it, you set to work on picking out what you can and writing it down, trying to find the key to understanding the book so that you can begin to read it.
Minutes pass, then an hour. Two hours, three hours. The sun is low over the far mountain peaks before you give up. You can't seem to get enough information out of the book alone to understand anything, and you sure can't create the key blindly this time, as you have no real leads to go on as to what could open the book to you. From what you've gathered it seems to be a more advanced book on elements, but without knowing what it covers in particular, you're stuck until you manage to reach that level, or figure out a way to unlock it.
Your mind returns to the thought about the multi-elemental spell. Maybe that could be the key? Then again, it's all part of a book you can read clearly, so whether or not it would work is another question. Still, it could be worth a shot, and it might help to get your eyes off the shifting text, it's starting to make you dizzy.
[] Work on the awakening spell for now. [] Keep trying to crack the key. [] Go on to research creating sight.
There's got to be some kind of trick to understanding the book, and you're going to find it even if it takes you all night. You get back to writing down notes from whatever you can understand from the book until you've almost entirely retranscribed everything you can understand, and start cross referencing it with other books on hand, trying to find a connection or some kind of hint as to what you would need to know.
Before you know it, you're lighting candles to be able to see, and some time later you realize the sun has long since set and you've made no significant progress. Your eyes are starting to hurt from spending so long staring at the shifting words and flipping between books. You've used several dozen sheets of paper chasing leads that got you nowhere but stuck, and now the dizzy feeling has become something you're more familiar with. You definitely need to take a break at least.
[] Go lay down [] Take a break, then work on the awakening spell [] Take a break, then work on creating sight
Truthfully I'm still kind of mad about how EZMode stuck into Alice instead of Shinki for the previous body swapping option. I would have liked to have seen how he'd write her in.
Ah well. It's no use digging up the past like that. Gotta look to the future and all.
Tossing you into a character who happens to be a deity almost right off the bat would have been a little silly. It would have been just as ridiculous to give you Suwako or Kanako right away, though more so because they're just aspects of nature whereas Shinki is -the- God of Makai.
Besides, you're supposed to try to remain undetected. You start buzzing around with someone that hasn't been seen in years and has no idea who anyone else is, it'll start raising eyebrows whether or not someone catches on about the possession.
I'm getting the feeling I'll have to go with the write in here.
Maybe some time in the future. For that though, you would need to leave Alice.
[x] Look around Alice's kitchen for something to eat. You're probably starving by now.
Come to think of it, you haven't eaten anything at all today, though you don't feel particularly hungry. This strikes you as a bit odd, considering you had been hungry shortly after you first attained Alice's body, but not since. You think back with Alice's memories, trying to see if you can recall the last time she ate before you took over. What you can recall is that it had been a week since her last meal prior to your arrival. A week? That can't be right, but then again, you do kind of believe it. After all, youai are supposed to be different than humans, maybe not needing to eat as often is one of the main differences. Still though, you still feel a little strange not eating, so you decide that the least you could do is find something to snack on.
You leave the table and wander around the house. You hadn't thought of it before, but you never really explored the house. Aside from the front of the house, where the front door and foyer connects directly into a living room, where your table and assorted furniture are, there's the doorway into Alice's bedroom, and another door you don't recall opening beside it. You decide to check out this door, and pulling it open, find yourself in a small kitchen, with another door on the just opposide your side of the room. You spend a few minutes searching the kitchen, largely bereft of any sort of hint of modern technology. You rather easily find what appears to be some kind of meat jerky, and decide to end your search there.
You're just leaving the kitchen when you hear a light knocking at the door. Well, it's not Marisa, that's for sure, she would just climb back in if she came. You consider whether or not you should answer the door or go back to work.
[] Answer the door, it's late at night to begin with. [] You don't want to be bothered, get back to trying to find the key. [] Ignore the door, get to making the awakening spell. [] It couldn't be too important, research ways to create sight.
[x] Walk to the door but have Shanghai ready just in case. "Who is it?"
"Reimu." a voice says from the other side of the door. You freeze for a second, not feeling like you should let her in as you remember how she had acted back at her shrine. Now that she knows you're home though, you couldn't possibly not answer the door now at least. You have a bit of an odd feeling about this, so you float Shanghai behind you and open the door.
Sure enough, there's Reimu, holding a paper bag in her hand.
"Mind if I come in?" she asks, brandishing the bag. "I brought some tea."
You step aside as she walks in. She looks fairly relaxed, and she's only carrying the bag, so you don't think she's come to cause trouble, she just looks like she's coming to visit, as much as you'd expect at least. You close the door behind her, and when you turn around, she's looking over the notes and books spread out on the table.
"Looks like you've been at this pretty hard," she says, turning her head towards you. "You've definitely dedicated yourself to this, haven't you?"
You get another weird feeling, but brush it off. After all, she's right, you have been working pretty hard on it so far. She walks away from the table and takes a look around the house for a moment before stepping up to the kitchen door and looking in.
"Ah, so here's your kitchen. Mind if I make the tea now?" she asks, half stepped through the door already.
[] "Oh, let me help you." [] "Hmm, sure, if you don't mind."
So if we insist that we follow her into the kitchen, we're going to show paranoia, and give away the fact that we're the criminal. But if we act innocent, we'll just be putting up a cover, and that'll also give away the fact that we're the criminal! I'm onto your game, L.
The thing is, if we try to help her out, we might accidentally let on that we aren't Alice, mostlikely through not being able to figure out things Alice should definately know about her own house. However, if Reimu is suspicious about us, if we let her go through on her own, she'll likely snoop around the house.
however, if we catch her snooping around, we could stop her and go "Hey! I know you're no Marisa but aren't you messing around too much?"
Reimu vanishes into the kitchen. You hear the sounds of a few cupboards being opened, apparently looking for where Alice keeps her cups. You pay her no real mind, heading back to the table where all the books and papers were. You hear the sound of a door creaking, and figure it must be the other door in the kitchen, so you head over to take a look. As expected, it was the other door, and it's wide open, the dark night woods just beyond. You can see a faint image of someone leaning over something, and you realize that there must be a well out there. There would have to be some source of water, since there didn't seem to be any conventional plumbing in this house. You spot two teacups, rather plain looking, sitting on a counter next to a wood burning stove.
Reimu returns with a small container of water and sees you standing in the doorway.
"Decided to help afterall?" she asks, setting the container on the counter.
"Oh, no, I was just checking to see if you found the cups alright." you say as a cover. Reimu motions towards the two cups on the counter.
"I found them pretty easily, but thanks." she says, returning to the tea making. As she goes about setting up the stove, you return to the main room, and sit back at the table. You might as well get some more work done while you can at least, since you wouldn't want to be too focused on the books when Reimu is done with the tea. You get right back into writing notes and trying to decipher any hint towards the key, and you don't even notice time passing until you hear the whistle of the tea kettle. You look towards the kitchen door, then down at the grimoire sitting next to you. Something feels wrong. Before you can think too long on it though, the door swings open and Reimu exits the kitchen, holding a small platter with the two teacups and a few rice crackers. You omve to clear some of the books and papers off thet able you're at as Reimu walks towards you.
She sets the tray down on the edge of the table and takes a seat. She hands you your cup of tea and takes her own, then gestures towards the crackers. You take one and take a bite.
"So, what prompted your late night visit, Reimu?" you ask, genuinely curious. Reimu replies with a sip of her tea.
"I was bored at the shrine, it's been too long without anything happening so I thought I'd go find a way to entertain myself." she says, no hint of hesitation. Well, sounds like the truth. You take another bite of the cracker.
"So what do you make of this whole 'lost soul' business that's been going around?" you ask, hoping to get a little insight on her thoughts. She picks up a cracker for herself and takes a bite.
"I'm not sure what to think yet, it all depends on what happens." she says, also no hesitation. You're starting to get an even worse feeling. Maybe a sip of tea will help quell the feeling. You raise the cup to your lips and take in a small mouthful of the tea.
You're instantly rocked with pain, and the world quickly whites out around you. The next time you're aware of anything, you see Alice laying on the ground, teacup spilled next to hear and half eaten cracker in one hand, coming to as Reimu kneels next to her.
"Wha-" Alice says, seeing Reimu.
"Alice, what's the last thing you remember?" Reimu asks with a curt tone. Oh shit.
"Huh... I was drawing... pattern... huh? Why am I on the floor?" Alice replies groggily.
Reimu looks up at you, but it takes you a moment to realize she doesn't actually see you yet. Whatever it was that happened, you've been seperated from Alice's body, and Reimu was likely the one responsible. Reimu turns her head away from your direction. Now would be your only chance to make a move.
[] Get back into Alice. [] Try to take over Reimu. [] No chances, get out now.
[x] Get back into Alice. All of the choices are pretty bad. There's no telling what kind of traps Reimu laid outside before she came in, or what kind of protection she put on herself just to fight us. May as well use our MacGuffin Sword to drive Reimu away, then put it in a secure location while we think about who we're going to possess next.
If a write-in wins, I'll use it even if it's not a choice, I'll have to make it work. Too late for that now though.
[x] Get back into Alice.
The only thing you can do is get back into Alice and hope that you can play it off. You float towards her, and think to yourself how you would best be able to reintegrate with her. You decide first of all you're going to float into her to try to hide, but as soon as you touch her, you're rocked with pain again and everything flashes white. Damn it, you can't even touch her anymore. Reimu must have done something after all, and now she's turning around, looking around the house. It doesn't seem like she knows where you are yet. She takes a few steps into the house, heading in the direction of the doll. You see it shivers slightly, and Reimu spots it immediately, taking a step back. She carefully gauges her steps, making sure to take a step away whenever she sees the doll shake on it's table.
Alice slowly gets up onto her feet now, still looking a little wobbly. She looks down and sighs, patting at the wet spots on her dress.
"Why am I covered in tea?" Alice asks. Reimu turns to her. For a second, you think you see Reimu look at you.
"There's been an escaped soul going around lately, and it can possess people. I thought I felt it in you last night when you came to the shrine, so I came here with some tea, and consecrated the water I made the tea with. We're both safe for now, but it's still loose around here." Reimu explains. God damn it, so that's what it was. You shouldn't hang around any more, Reimu won't stay unaware of your presence for long. You float through the wall and into the night, disappearing into the Forest of Magic.
This isn't good, this isn't good at all. You've been removed from Alice, and you have no idea how long you'll be unable to go back. In any case, you shouldn't spend too long out in the open. You're a lot more vulnerable when you're just a spirit, so you need to find a new body quickly, but who exactly? You remember Marisa, and float up into the air to get your bearings, but in the dark in's almost impossible for you to make out any details. You're screwed for now, you can only hope that if you 'go to sleep' as a spirit you'll wake up in another body. In fact, if it doesn't work, it won't be long until you're found again.
Much to your luck however, all it takes is for you to will your own consciousness away, and the world fades back into a dream.
DAY 2 END
ALICE ROUTE TEMPORARILY LOCKED
ALICE ROUTE COMPLETION: 84% ALICE RANK: B+
Bad Ends Avoided: 3 No Hints Used Bonus +1 Clue Token Rank Bonus +2 Clue Tokens
Use Clue tokens to purchase more information about choices! [See immediate results]
Should I give the answers for the hints I gave, or keep them in case of another playthrough?
I suggest Yuuka, at least at some point down the line. She's a spell-making youkai, so her abilities would probably synergize with what we've learned thus far.
For now, though, someone inconspicuous would be a good idea. Patchouli, perhaps.
Well, maybe temporarily, for a day, we should. That way we can let Alice know through a letter what we've tried to do for her, and what the next leads were, so that all the work isn't thrown away as trash.
And we need to explain our intentions to at least someone; we don't want every touhou we've possessed trying to hunt us down.
Yuka would be way too high level for us. And playing her would be EASY MODO since she almost no one interacts with her, and those she has knows her actions are extremely erratic.
Patchy would be a good way to accumulate knowledge quickly. Koakuma would be even easier though, but the gains would be lower.
It wouldn't be quite as a pronounced craziness as, say, Flandre. I always considered the whole 'they're insane!' thing to just be an exaggeration. Though reading Bohemian Archive about Flan is... well... yeah. She's actually insane. Yuuka I'm not to sure on, I don't have much of an opinion on her other than the fact she's pretty much 'lol flowers' and nothing more. Debating whether or not she'd be in or near a field of flowers, or in her mansion she had back in Lotus Land Story.
I've read through all of Yuka's Scripts in all of the games she's been in, and I've learned two things. She's highly Judgemental, and she regards Genocide as a casual, family-friendly game.
I always just presumed that she would have grown a flower field around her mansion at some point.
Yuuka's craziness is relatively fanon. She doesn't seem to have much regard for human life, but side material like PMiSS says that she's capable of heading into society without causing any trouble at all, and that she's quite polite. The only people she really seems to lash out against are people who are rude to her and people who she believes to be quite powerful. She tends to just turn the former into bloody smears, and she tends to try and compete with the latter - she seems to stay on relatively good terms with strong people, but she tries to instigate conflicts.
Basically, as long as you're either strong or polite, she won't act against you as far as I can tell - not with lethal intent, anyway. And beyond that, she's polite enough - relatively kindly, actually, considering she's a youkai.
We ought to go for Patchy if possible, both for improved magic knowledge, and for the chance to start making her act a little more "friendly" with Alice, just as we made Alice act friendlier with her. Just advance that relationship a little bit at a time, and let the two of them find something in each other when we're inevitably forced to leave Patchy's body.
Hopefully when Alice finds all the progress we made for her, and starts to feel for Patchy, she'll forgive us.
This made me think. Hey EZMode, is it possible for touhous to complete their objectives for one touhou (if by example, we started them off on the right path by possessing them, then gave them more advice while possessing someone else?).
Yes, though honestly it might be a while before you get to Patchy. I've had quite my fill of book readan gaems for now, so going to have a bit of a romp with a new body just to get a change of pace.
I could never understand why this doujin is supposed to be sad. Okay, implied suicide, but Koakuma is some kind of demon, which surely falls within youkai territory. I seriously doubt she could even considerably wound herself with a shard of porcelain, let alone die. Even if she killed herself.
then we should pick a person that doesn't like nor talk to Reimu next dream we have. I'm hoping for Youmu or China next, imagine as China we can help her to get freedom!
>I could never understand why this doujin is supposed to be sad. Okay, implied suicide, but Koakuma is some kind of demon, which surely falls within youkai territory. I seriously doubt she could even considerably wound herself with a shard of porcelain, let alone die. Even if she killed herself.
It's one of those small details that people tend to forget. Sort of like Rumia not being able to see in her own darkness, and fairies NOT being physically stronger than humans.
Presumably Koakuma can choose to suppress whatever powers she has to end her own life. The point really isn't the actual act, though, it's the situation that caused it. She's completely isolated, ignored, feels useless even for the simple tasks she was created to do, and Patchouli doesn't even care enough to scold her.
I'm not surprised that you got as far as you did, rather I'm surprised that for the most part Anon managed to pick all the options that were correct, or at least didn't lead to a monumental failure. It was a pretty good run up to the whole key grindan gaems and letting Reimu make the tea alone. I was a little lenient towards the end compared to what I had considered. I had thought to split the end posts up and have Reimu walking around a bit and start getting close to the magicked doll, and give a choice to warn her or not to warn her. Warning her would have gotten you some attention, but you'd also gain a small amount of sync. Not warning her, it would leap at her, and she would react by destroying it, then immediately turn on you. I thought that would be a bit too harsh though, to not only be forced to fight Reimu and give yourself away anyway, but even if you won, your prototype was smashed.
Also, for what it's worth, a forewarning: If there's a chance in a scene that will lead to danger/being purged, there will be options to avoid it, but they might not be as readily apparent or might seem a bit trivial. It will be pretty clear when something's wrong though, so if there's danger afoot it would be best to start being careful. That would be the best times to use clue tokens, so you know what the immediate results of a choice are.
>>42447 As China, we'd end up ZA WARUDO'd, and have to find a new body quickly.
Even if we didn't, any improvements we make in China's life would only raise others' expectations of her, thus making it harder for her, and I dun wanna do dat.
>>42444 >I've had quite my fill of book readan gaems for now, so going to have a bit of a romp with a new body just to get a change of pace. I really want to see how Alice reacts to all this, though. It's going to be hard to find out unless we transfer soon to someone she'd talk to about it. I guess we could always transfer into one of her dolls and just ask her, but that would be...very risky.
What I can't figure out is why Reimu didn't have any method of capturing us. She knew the tea would just seperate us from Alice, why wasn't Komachi waiting outside with a Ghostbusters trap?
She probably had her doubts about it.. but now that she knows we were in Alice she's going to start seriously cracking down on us, searching anyone, everywhere. I say that the next body we inhabit we immediately make it our 'goal' to find the 'lost soul' which is actually 'us'.
Even at complete sync Leimu would still be 10% certain that we are Kira.
Three approaches to the red-white problem as I see it:
1) Dodge. Play it safe & focus on avoiding interaction, even if it means lower XP gains. 2) Shoot. Hammer away at route completion like we (sorta) did with Alice, trying to max sync as quickly as possible. 3) Graze. Purposefully stay above radar and assume she'll look the other way as long as we can show we're doing good acts.
