Game Update: May II 2377

[nashiramods]

Weather & Recap ⭐︎ By Daylight ⭐︎ By Starlight

🎶 Recommended Listening: Transformers Prime Main Theme - Brian Tyler ♪
may ii 2377
EPISODE 2: Bathhouse Blitz! Save the Black Cat and the Golden Butterfly!
May 17 - May 24

Weather: Chalra City is enjoying a balmy and sunny late spring with some light rain here and there. The inland breeze from the nearby beaches brings a cool touch and the promise of summer, and flowering forsythia adds splashes of bright yellow to many parts of the city. The highs for the month average around 72°F/22°C, with lows around 50°F/10°C.
Star Suite: The Library has been unlocked! Every Nova Knight will also recover a memory from their past life. More details in the post below.
Recap: In Episode 1, you successfully investigated and foiled your very first plot by the enemy! After Nautis identified the high-end complicated-patterns fashion craze around the Dan Flashes boutique as originating from the Harbingers, the Nova Knights did some thorough investigating and then, in their first serious battle since the night at Lucky Stars, defeated Dan Flashes himself. You can find the previous month's event log here.

You can see what the Harbingers themselves are up to in the aftermath of the event in the Episode 1 Harbingers Gaiden! Mostly a lot of bickering, but they're now aware of the threat posed by the Nova Knights, and they're already making plans to eliminate them.

BY DAYLIGHT
⭐︎ Now that Dan Flashes is out of business, a new business has taken over the space — so quickly, in fact, that it doesn't seem like it was ever vacant at all. There's now a frozen yogurt joint in its place called FroYo Better Believe It!. The only thing Nautis finds suspicious about it is the fact that people like frozen yogurt at all.

⭐︎ Shelley Lustre, art teacher at Everwave Academy, has announced that he'll be holding an art contest for the students. The theme: hidden beauty. Given his already very polarizing personality and deep fondness for seashell-studded sculpture, this promises to be a very...divisive competition.

⭐︎ Public bathhouses are a staple in Chalra City, and they're no exception to the march toward modernization. Newer public baths are bigger and boast much more amenities than their more traditional counterparts, which is precisely why the historic Golden Butterfly Bathhouse is at risk of going out of business! Run by Granny Chocho, whose family has been operating this bathhouse for the last two hundred years, the Golden Butterfly is located right around where the red-light district and the most historic part of the city intersect. But what the Golden Butterfly lacks in fancy amenities, it makes up for with its historic charm, attentive service, and hard-scrubbed cleanliness — which is exactly what its faithful regulars have been trying to spread the word about.

If you pass through that part of town this week, you might meet some customers and even Granny Chocho herself handing out flyers to try and recruit new customers — and if you bring the flyer with you, you get 50% off your entry fee. Not a bad deal, especially if you like quiet and simple! It might be worth checking out, though you'd have to enter as a civilian.

At the end of the week, though, the flyers are a little different — now they're offering a discount on the new scented bath salts the Golden Butterfly is selling! You're not familiar with the brand — a pearl in a stylized oyster shell, bearing the text Seaside Lustre — but they're being advertised as being great for both relaxation and rejuvenation. Apparently, you can have it all!

BY STARLIGHT
⭐︎ Recovered Memory: In the couple of days following the Dan Flashes fight, everyone will recover a memory from their past life — specifically, their final moments in the fight against the Abyss. More than just the dying wish, this is a full memory of whatever last conversation, fight, or whatever they had before dying in the final battle aboard the Nashira. You're not required to, but you're welcome to detail the contents of your character's memory in the thread for recovered memories below. You can also keep track of your character's past life memories with our handy-dandy info page template!

⭐︎ Hideout Status: As a result of everyone's tidying efforts earlier in the month, it's actually pretty nice in here now! There's a big sectional couch for lounging around, at the very least. It's even starting to feel kind of homey.

Another fruit of your labor is that a new part of the crashed ship has become available: you can now access the Library, a modest-sized room with floor-to-ceiling shelves, every last one of them packed with books. Magic books! Much like a modern tablet but with actual pages, these individual books can hold a wealth of magically-stored information and recall what you wish to learn on its pages. Naturally, none of these books are in the local language, but in standard Hassalean. That's not a problem for you guys, though — perhaps due to your recently recovered memories, you all discover that you also have the ability to speak and read Hassalean, as though you simply downloaded the knowledge into your brain. Neat!

If you'd like to have your character peruse the library, you can reply to the thread below to have the mod roll for what they find.

There's also a small hydroponic garden along one corner, though nothing is currently planted in it.

⭐︎ The Rewards page has been updated with the next Star Suite upgrade: the next room to unlock is the Aquarium, and the reward will be a Silver-level Star Suite power. Save up those SP!

⭐︎ Intel: Thanks to the missions earlier in May, you all know quite a lot more than you started! To recap: you now know that one of the Harbingers is named Prince Shellustria, and his magic is of the Glamour domain.

You also learned that the data Nautis needs to locate the Star Map fragments was stored in the soul of the ship's mascot, a black cat named Niangniang with whom Nautis does not seem to have been on good terms. Nevertheless, she's definitely been reincarnated on Earth too, so you'll need to find this cat so Nautis can retrieve the necessary data. Apparently recovering data from someone's soul is a perfectly safe, painless process, but the way she emphasizes these points makes you feel like maybe she hopes something bad happens to this cat. Anyway, she's working on a means of tracking down this elusive mascot, so she'll get back to you with more info later!

⭐︎ The Fate of Nova Zenith: Late at night on May 17, everyone receives an uncharacteristically subdued update from Nautis. Apparently Nova Zenith read through some books in the library about what was known to the Hassaleans about the Abyss and decided to investigate on his own — and ran afoul of Prince Shellustria himself. Unfortunately, Nova Zenith was outmatched on his own, and before Nautis could summon any backup, he was overpowered by Shellustria and claimed by the Abyss. He isn't dead, but captive, and he can be saved if they defeat the Abyss — but all the same, the loss of the oldest member of their group will doubtless rock the rest of the Nova Knights.

Comments

[theriflespiral]

"Your taste amounts to gluing shells and pearls on it and calling it streampunk, professor." Her hands shape the piece, leaving no finger marks.

[nashiranpcs]

Shelley bristles even further, somehow. His face is growing unflatteringly red with fury.

"Another comment like that, Miss Koutolika, and you will be reporting to the principal's office!"

[theriflespiral]

"Promise?" She's not in his classes, so he can't exactly fail her. The worst he can do is kick her out of his contest, and, well, that's what she wants?

Despite this snark, the shape on the wheel is forming into that of a whelk's shell.

[nashiranpcs]

If this were a cartoon, steam would literally be rising from Shelley's head. Fortunately this is a cartoon, and he looks real mad. The fact that she's starting to sculpt a seashell is not enough to temper his self-righteous fury.

"Principal's office, Miss Koutolika! And I will be speaking with her later!"

[theriflespiral]

"Have fun with that, sir. I expect a report on your conference on my desk Monday morning." She gently sets the clay off-center and only resists the urge to throw the wheel, sending a lump of clay into Shelley's poor, noble body, by way of the fact that surely the next student won't resist the urge to spin it.

With that, she stands up, washes her hands, and leaves the art room.

[theriflespiral]

"Do you want to tell me why you're in my office, Miss Koutolika?" Maisie Gala might consider herself severe and down to earth, but Natalia considered her politely soft. To her, teaching was a job like any other, and science was something you paid someone else to do and eventually new things came out.

It was all very reminiscent of the Old Country to Natalia, really. Hardly worth mentioning.

So, Natalia sat down, and said, bluntly, "Accurately called Professor Lustre's taste garish."

Headmistress Gala paused and blinked. "Surely that cannot have been the only thing."

"Oh, he attempted to give me one of his lectures," Natalia replied. "I've heard worse from better. Doesn't change he'll brighten the minute you glue a shell on a greeting card."

"Miss Koutolika. I cannot condone backtalk to teachers," Headmistress Gala said, looking her square in the eyes.

"I'm sure you won't," Natalia shrugged. They hadn't even made her do pushups yet. This was milquetoast. "It doesn't change the man throws a tantrum every time someone does something not according to his tastes. I had thought them mere rumor before someone else signed me up for this. He goes around demanding every student add glitter and braze foil on."

"Well. Brazing is an appropriate skill to learn for an artist," she replies, with a certain level of tact. "Regardless. I can't just let you run rampant through the campus sassing the faculty on your own say so."

"What do you propose? Two days without lunch? A thirst ban? Ah, perhaps a ceremonial beating--"

"Miss Koutolika. I understand that you are from a land where such things are applauded, but that is beyond the pale!"

"Not applauded," Natalia says, voice in a dangerous tone of anger. "Merely quietly borne."

"... Perhaps you should see a counselor."

"Would we had one," she replies, with fire in her eyes and a firm expression. "But I take your meaning. Go on. What shall it be, to keep me in that class, which I remind you I did not sign up for? What can you possibly put out that I have not already felt?"

"Rather fatalistic of you to say."

"Professor Lustre expects some punishment he may lord over me yet. Perhaps you shall dip me in glue and pour sand on me. He'd like that."

"Please take this seriously!" Natalia saw this as much as begging for mercy from her sense of humor as a genuine plea to understand the consequences. "This is your education."

"I am. The man does not wish to teach. You know my history. You know why, after having experienced one of his tantrums, this scene will repeat until the contest is over or I, or he, are gone."

"... I have a counter-proposal. You still aim to follow through on this contest?"

"I would prefer not to."

"Let me rephrase that: you will follow through on this contest. Because I believe you can express yourself far better than this. If necessary, I will even rent you the pottery room after classes. But you will fire an artwork and you will enter."

"... headmistress?"

"This is your punishment. Make him have to think about disqualifying your work. Because he will. And I will see it for myself."

"... And I will not have to return to his class?"

"Indeed not."

"Done."