Game Update: July II 2377

[nashiramods]

Weather & Recap ⭐︎ By Daylight ⭐︎ By Starlight
🎶 Recommended Listening: Hope On Fire - Vienna Teng ♪
july ii 2377
EPISODE 6: Game Over or New Game+? Dive into the Dark Ocean!
July 17 - July 24

Star Suite: The Lab has been unlocked! All Nova Knights recover a new memory from their past lives, and Nautis has upgraded everyone's dowsing machines to function as tiny walkie-talkies. More details in the post below.
Constellations: Two out of seven Constellations have been captured.
⭐︎ The Nova Knights possess the Dancer
⭐︎ The Harbingers possess the Three Sisters
Weather: Summer is in full swing in Chalra City! July is just as humid as June, but even hotter, and the breeze blowing in from the sea is more beckoning than refreshing. A handful of summer thunderstorms sweep through the city, but most days are hot, hot, hot and sunny. Street vendors selling shaved ice and handmade wind chimes are on every corner, and gleeful water gun fights are a common scene in the city's parks. The highs for the month average around 93°F/34°C, with lows around 75°F/24°C.

Recap: The first half of July saw three new Nova Knights awaken: Nova Justicar, Nova Vortex, and Nova Chroma! In spite of having more hands on deck, though, things haven't exactly gone according to plan. There was mixed success in investigating the source of the strange arguments breaking out all over the city, but they were able to identify this is the work of one of the loose Constellations, the Three Sisters, as well as discover and foil another, much subtler energy harvesting plot by the enemy at Sea & Spray Salon & Spa. The mission to capture the Three Sisters, however, ended in disaster. Nova Pandora, Nova Mortis, and Nova Pastos failed to connect with the spirit of the Constellation, and then failed to prevent it from falling into Prince Shellustria's hands. The Star Map is their only hope of sealing away the Abyss, so the Nova Knights will have to find a way to get it back.

BY DAYLIGHT
⭐︎ Summer break is on its way! The first two weeks of August are summer break for Chalra City schools. Most schools assign homework over the break (bleh), but hey, a vacation is a vacation! Next month will be the perfect time to hit the beach with friends or take a day trip to go sightseeing. If you're an adult...well...hopefully you can take some time off from those tiresome adult responsibilities to enjoy the summer! Even as school and work trudges on, though, there's still a shuttle bus you can take to the beach in your free time, and if you need to cool off without leaving the city, Chalra City has plenty of public pools.

⭐︎ A new video game rental place has set up shop in the train station shopping center! The storefront for The Wonder Junction Two-Day Video Game Rental is fairly tiny — a narrow little closet of a space squeezed between a comic book shop and a Five and Chime variety store, every shelf packed with games for rent, old and new. A comically lazy college student seems to be the only person manning the shop at all times.

There's a new home console craze on with the competing releases of the cartridge-based Prism Plug-N-Play and the CD-ROM-based FortuneCore, and what's more, they have consoles for rent, too! There's a well-curated CD-ROM selection for the discerning PC gamer, and they even have a small selection of those now out-of-date-but-still-kinda-cool VHS board games.

⭐︎ Patrons of the Midnight Diner may hear some lingering rumors from earlier in the month. The chick seller, often seen on many a street corner around Chalra City, can be found at the diner complaining about how he's fallen on hard times. Apparently kids these days are way more interested in virtual pets than real pets, and it's really hurting business! It's been especially bad since that new video game rental store opened up.

In brighter news, however, Pairin and the madam of Verdigris House seem to have settled their contract dispute, and rumors of Pairin taking her celebrity-level popularity to another pleasure house have all but dispersed.

⭐︎ The Smoketree Promenade, a neighborhood in one of the historical districts so named for the peculiar summer blooms of the trees that line the street, is hosting its annual summer event starting this week, Midsummer on the Promenade! For the latter half of July, neighborhood businesses and residents set up stalls along the street selling food and local handmade goods, and people flock to the Smoketree Promenade day and night for some of the city's best street food, outdoor entertainment, and carnival games, including goldfish catching. Atlacian fantail goldfish come in a variety of colors and patterns, which make them a popular pet for collecting!

BY STARLIGHT
⭐︎ Hope's Prophecy: Thanks to their past as a diviner for the Oracle, Hope may occasionally receive prophetic dreams that give the Knights a hint about what's to come. Hope did not have a prophetic dream this time around either, but there's always next time!

⭐︎ Hideout Status: A new part of the crashed ship is now accessible: the Lab! Unlike the Library and the Aquarium, which are fairly low-tech in the grand scheme of ancient magic starships, the Lab is outfitted with an array of arcane science equipment, and it seems to have served as a multipurpose bio lab of some kind. Unfortunately, almost all of the equipment is out of order from centuries of disuse and old battle damage, and the operation manuals in Nautis's databanks are hefty, but there might be something in here that Maomao can use for future experiments.

Every character recovers a memory from their past life: a memory of joy or satisfaction, or the closest thing to it they may have felt. Your characters can share recovered memories if you wish!

Nautis has also upgraded everyone's dowsing machines to act as communicators! They aren't as sophisticated as your cell phones, as they function more like walkie-talkies, but they can connect over great distances and make for easy quick communication, either one-on-one with another Nova Knight or a broadcast to everyone. While they do work outside of supernova, they're far more conspicuous than cell phones, so they're not as practical for use in civilian life. You certainly don't want to risk your teacher taking it away in class!

Now that the Aquarium has been repaired, it's ready to host fish! Of course they don't have any Hassalean fish to hand, but Nautis says that there's no reason they can't host Earth fish.
NOTE: This will be an upcoming mission opportunity.

The Rewards page has been updated with the next Star Suite upgrade: the next room to unlock is the Training Room, and the reward will be a Silver-level Star Suite power and some fun new training activities. Save up those SP!

⭐︎ Maomao's Garden: The team mascot has been content to seclude herself in the Library with the hydroponic garden pretty much all of the time she spends in the hideout. Maomao, despite hanging out in her civilian identity (because she will not bear the indignity of turning into a cat), has little interest in socially engaging with the Nova Knights. She's here to get kicks doing weird xenobotany experiments, and anyone who gets too close to the garden will get a hiss and a powerfully unfriendly stare.

Speaking of weird experiments, she's definitely doing some! It's too early for her to be synthesizing any kind of medicine...because she hasn't finished testing the medicinal properties of any of these plants yet. She is conducting a number of tests on herself — her left arm, which she usually keeps bandaged, is covered in an alarming variety of small injuries. Don't worry, she's cross-referencing botanical texts from the Library, but you can't understate the value of firsthand data. She will be putting all of them in her mouth, probably.

⭐︎ Nautis Updates: Despite her usual upbeat attitude, Nautis seems just as concerned as everyone else about the Constellation falling into enemy hands.

> Well, we might have a full house now, but our problems just keep multiplying (◞‸◟；)
> It's pretty bad news that one of the Constellations has fallen into the enemy's hands. If we don't have all seven Constellations, we won't be able to use the Star Map.
> Or at any rate, I have no idea what would happen if we tried. It's never been done before.
> We have to find a way to take back the Three Sisters from the Harbingers. It's risky, but it's still our best shot.
> I'm currently working on a few potential solutions. As soon as I've finished running some calculations and simulations, I'll update you with the new grand plan! ^_^
> I've been picking up rumors about people collapsing or suffering from severe fatigue for a few days again, which is weird.
> I mean, it sounds like classic Abyss energy harvesting, but this is waaaaaaayyyyy less subtle than the last couple of times.
> With the Constellations in play, it's kind of hard to say...
> Which means it's time for you all to get investigating! (•̀ᴗ•́ )و
> Set aside your worries for now! Don't think so hard about failure! I mean it, really banish all thoughts of doom and gloom from your mind!
> Say it with me: Don't! Think! Bad! Thoughts!!! (￣∇￣ﾉﾉ"
> Oh, and I upgraded all of your dowsing machines! Now you can use them as little communicators ^_^
> Isn't that fun? Doesn't that make you feel better?

⭐︎ Intel: Not only do the Harbingers have possession of one of the Constellations, the Nova Knights have no idea what they plan to do with it. They'll have to do some investigating to find out what the Harbingers' next move is, but in the meantime, there does seem to be another inexplicable outbreak of neurasthenia. The fatigue and headaches only last a couple of days before the patients return to normal, which is pretty consistent with previous energy harvesting plots, but this is a lot less subtle than the operations at Sea & Spray or Duet 77. They'll also need to find out where and how the Harbingers are keeping the Three Sisters, which likely means a dangerous mission to infiltrate their own base.