Part 120: Day 49 - Gameplay
Day 49: Gameplay
Hey, Manager
are you sure about this?
We've been sitting on this LOB for weeks. If I don't use it for something, what's the point?
High scores?
We can trade them later for a nice chianti to go with our meal!
I wouldn't mind using them to further power my plan.
Hey
who is this guy?
Megalomaniac wanting to save everyone by turning them into monsters, hopped into chat and I can't kick him out.
Again? Where do you keep finding these people?
Does it matter? Let's just kick his ass and move on.
Yes, bray now while you still have a chance. Soon, this nameless one-
Nameless one? We've been calling him X.
-shall join me, and we shall show the world wonders untold.
He doesn't listen to people. Anyways, if previous patterns hold up we should be dealing with both the Lower Layer suppressions together.
How troublesome...
It is. I don't like it, but the best way to deal with this is to make sure that we have some extra hands on deck. And to do that
We train some new employees?
That'd take forever. No, we're calling a temp agency.
This is way outside the standard contract, Manager. You need temp workers from us? Why?
Because I am currently trying to stop a second, completely insane, version of me from turning all of humanity into Abnormalities.
Fine. I'll figure out the paperwork, but you're going to have to provide us some extra energy for this job.
No problem. Thanks for the help on such short notice.
I finally spend our stockpiled LOB buying up 22 more Agents for the day. Each one has been boosted to Fortitude/Prudence/Temperance 4, since An Arbiter deals enough Black damage throughout the facility to cause our base hires to die instantly in the somewhat Black-weak E.G.O suits we have left over for them. It's a good idea to try and buy Fortitude/Prudence 4 Agents to fill any open slots the facility has. Without further ado, let's introduce today's temps:
Control:
Information:
Safety (Which only gets 1, as Mizu has moved here to babysit):
Training:
Central Command:
Welfare:
Disciplinary:
Records:
Extraction (Who gets one extra, for reasons outlined above):
Architecture:
They're going to be serving as a buffer against us getting screwed by the RNG, since if someone like Mizu gets instantly panicked/killed we're going to be left without good options to handle WhiteNight today.
Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I've checked over the notes from our past suppressions, and cross-referenced them with the last two days. I think I have an idea of what to expect.
So it's plan time! What are we doing?!
You guys just focus on working. All the hard stuff is on my end.
Things that you won't be able to manage, since we are no longer dealing with threats which I have experienced. None have ever made it farther than I, after all. How could they? I know everything.
Oh yeah? Then what am I about to say?!
Wrong.
Wrong! It's
dammit. One more round!
I think not. It is time for me to go ahead.
Fine. Then let's settle this and put a stop to your nonsense for good.
How shameful. Do you truly want to let people suffocate, trapped away in their skin?!
Of course not. I make sure everyone gets the air they need to breathe. Thing is, they kind of need that skin to live. As people.
Very well, then. I shall take your crutch away from you. The infinite time which allows us to process orders
Talow, I take it we have confirmation?
Sure do, boss. It's uh
It's really shmovin'!
Whatever that means.
Right, so you've overridden the TT2 protocol and added a penalty that kills people when I use it. That's what you were going to say?
If you understand so much, why don't you see what I'm trying to do? What the true answer is?
Because I can recognize patterns. All that lies at the end of what you're doing is the apocalypse.
If it takes the end of the world to build a perfect paradise, then so it shall be.
Levels 1-4 posted:
The path I traveled was riddled with thorns; it was a penance with no end in sight.
Day 49 is considered the single most difficult challenge in all of Lobotomy Corporation. Unlike previous days, Hokma's effect has not been toned down at all. Like before, pausing costs us 1 Agent instantly dying/panicking + 1 additional Agent each time we do it after the first. We also can't change the game speed at all. This means that any mistakes when handling the Fixers will quickly snowball-it's important to be precise and decisive. Hokma, as ever, is all about preventing any fires from starting.
Unfortunately for us, at the start of Meltdown Level 5 Binah will be dousing the facility in gas and throwing a match. She still spawns in all of her special meltdown types throughout her fight, and since many of them have timers of 45 seconds it's a big ask to work them all without pausing.
But wait, there's more! Remember the memory issues I mentioned all the way back in the OP? Binah causes a lot of things to be going on on screen, and this makes the game lag. Lag also affects our ability to input commands to our Agents, meaning each click in assigning a work will take longer than normal. This becomes even worse when we're playing zoomed out, which we want to do in order to see and move to where all the meltdowns have spawned. No matter how quickly I move, I cannot issue orders fast enough to allow me to beat the timer. This means breaches, and it means Binah is basically invincible.
By this point in a first playthrough, most people have gotten the hang of things and will have created a team of Agents who they're incredibly attached to. They'll want to avoid letting them die at all costs, and this means not pausing when they need to, and it'll mean losing the day.
While day 47 was a check to see if we've been slacking on training our Agents, and day 48 was basically just a test to see if we can suppress Red Mist the right way, day 49 is a test of something else: How willing are we to let the Agents we've made and spent the whole game with die, and how well can we improvise if chance kills someone important?
I will be letting Agents die today.
Because I am doing that, I will be showing off how to destroy the hardest day in the game. This will not be a close fight. 
Mizu's job today is to sit in this elevator and continuously work with WhiteNight. She will not be leaving this corner.
I see that in the end you've added a few more hangers-on. It won't matter.
Would you shut up?
I shall not. For as long as I am here, I shall preach the truth which has been shown to me.
Our first step is to murder the Clerks. If we didn't have Queen of Hatred in the facility I'd take out as many as possible each level and aim to have them all dead before Level 3. Instead, we'll be taking out the Lower layer at 1, the Middle at 2, half of Upper at 3, and the other half at 4. That will let us keep Queen happy through the point where Binah spawns in.
I've heard your 'truth.' You're not the first asshole to come in here wanting to rob man of their forms and force an evolution. See, listen.
Manager!! No matter how long it taketh, nor how magnificent thy arrogance beeth, My magnificence shalt inevitably shine forth! My apostles shall save all of man, and My-
See that? That's what you sound like.
My
My my my. Don't you see, this is simply more proof! That creature's existence means that this is what all of mankind wants!
Not sure how you get from "freakishly horrifying bean fetus" to "mankind wants to be monsters," but I don't really care either.
I queue up our first load of works, and Twee moves to enter her invincible mode. Since Parasite Tree and WhiteNight are both in the Upper Layer today, I focus mostly on this section to keep things simple.
This beast was newly created-I've not seen its like before. Something resonated within the well of man's unconsciousness to cause that.
You looked in the Well and went so nuts it bleached your hair. How does that make this thing?
Fool
do you know nothing of the Well and the Bucket? All I did was provide the possibility, which mankind became aware of. From there, all one would have had to do is-
Oh wait, I just remembered: I. Don't. Care. You're insane, so your answer is going to be insane.
The truth hurts, doesn't it? Stop running from it! There are still more wonders to manage that you haven't seen yet!
For instance, this being here!
Or this specimen. Shouldn't you be doing your job, nameless one?
As far as I'm concerned, my job is stopping you. Those two can wait until tomorrow.
But there shall be no tomorrow here! I have thrown away the past without regret, and become the savior this world requires!
Prior to pushing into the next meltdown level, it's important to zoom out so that we can see where the Meltdowns spawn.
You can't just throw away the past!
Nonsense. You saw what occurs when you hold on to the things we've done. It left weakness in the hearts of Abram and Abel alike. There is weakness in your heart as well, nameless one-left there by your clinging to sentimentality and the past. It's why you cannot fathom what lies ahead.
You're mistaking being human for a weakness. I've faced my past and taken a good hard look at it-and from there I know where to go in the future. If we don't learn from our mistakes, how can we grow?
What need have I for growth? I already know everything.
Humanity's flesh prison is a weakness, and your sentimentality ties you to it. You may have overcome Abram's regrets, but you are still bound by his weakness.
If the alternative is to embrace nihilism, then I'll take weakness every time.
This isn't nihilism, you degraded fool; it's evolution!
An evolution that takes away everything that makes us human!
Because humanity is the disease Carmen spoke of!
I take care of the Middle Layer's Clerks now. If our Dawn spawns in the Upper Layer we'll have to scramble to handle it, but otherwise we should be fine.
She wanted to cure humanity!
And to do that, we must cure humanity!
That's completely asinine! You don't cure an illness by ripping someone in half!
This is simply setting their true natures free to roam!
I also set up in the three-elevator formation from the previous days to deal with the Dawn coming up.
What would you know about people? You surrounded yourself with robots!
So did you.
Yeah, at first. I've realized that that was a bad idea. While you just discarded our past whole cloth and washed your hands of it, I've been busy learning from it.
I don't need to learn anything more about them.
You know everything, right, got it. But you clearly don't.
Every single person here came from somewhere. They have a story, their own reasons for existing!
And in your transient lifetime, you'll learn nothing more than a speck about any of them. Humans cannot connect as humans.
And what about you? You know everything.
I know that their stories do not matter. Their true essences strain against their shells, wishing to be let go.
And that's why I'll never agree with you. People matter.
You're ablaze with contradictions, nameless one. If they matter, then why have you executed the clerks every level?
It's called the trolley problem. Are you aware of it?
Of course I a-
Good, then you can learn how incredibly annoying it is to have someone talk over you to tell you something you already know.
Honestly, the most annoying part about the opening stage of day 49 for me is always dealing with 1x speed. It feels so slow. 
Let's say there's a trolley with two sets of tracks. If the trolley keeps going down its path, it crushes five people and they all die. There's an alternate path, but there's one person on it. You're standing at a switch that changes which track they're on. Do you do nothing, let five people die, and avoid responsibility? Or do you take on the act of deciding yourself to kill that one person?
When those same people are given my salvation, they shall become Abnormalities and free of death. The trolley is immaterial.
Dude
No. Just no. I was thinking "switch the track, then Execution bullet the person so the terrifying Bird doesn't get angry." How did you somehow choose the worst possible answer?
You're only saying that because the bigger picture escapes your pathetic mind.
Says the guy who's very existence turned our mind palace into some kind of junk heap! I mean, look at it!
What is this?! Some kind of freaky man-diagram?!
You could not begin to fathom the incredible importance held within those-
It's weird is what it is! Like, I could at least understand Abram and Abel! There is no part of you that isn't plain
cringeworthy!
What did you just call me?
Cringeworthy!
I'm not cringeworthy. 
You're totally cringy, Adam.
You just don't get it. When you understand the key secrets of all mankind, no one ever gets it!
For the Dawn, we want to quickly scout out where our Fixer is at. To do this I glance around the upper Layer for red, then I look close to the elevators the other two teams are in, and then through Central and Architecture.
Turns out today's is a Red Fixer, above the Welfare elevator.
I let it come to us, so that I can drop a Red bullet on the entire elevator-this much focused DPS isn't something the fixer can take down for long.
I also reapply after every attack the Fixer gets off. We've got plenty of bullets and they refill each meltdown, there's no reason not to splurge.
There we go. The Dawn's been taken care of without a single problem.
Oh
not even one problem?
What the
how'd that happen?
I told you you weren't as good at managing as me.
Oh shut up, I'm still doing fine.
This is actually rather odd. Kay-Hoss was wearing Woodsman's suit, which is a 0.8x Red multiplier. That shield hovering near their corpse means they were killed in one shot through it-otherwise it'd have shattered.
A bit of research shows why-I forgot to power them up like the others. Because of this the chip damage they took from attacks going over their shield combined with the beam to result in a death. That's on me-but it also serves as an important lesson: Hod-boosted newbies seem tough, but they're very fragile in the endgame.
Anyways, I clear out Training and Information-please remember to try and shoot at Clerks who aren't in the same room as your Agents. I'm being needlessly careless here.
I will say, I expected an immediate meltdown.
Yeah, well, luckily I dealt with this before. Hokma's interference with the TT2 protocol was only a pain in the ass, but it let me figure out how to do this.
It matters little. I'll show you how short your resolve falls soon enough, when faced with a memory of that day whose horror forever dyed our-
You're calling on an Arbiter right at the start of level 5. Right?
...You don't know that for certain!
Bird you have two seconds to change your mind or you are in for some hurt.
It's an Arbiter. And it's probably then because gathering the power you need takes a while.
How would you know that?!
Pattern recognition. You keep calling me degraded, but
If anything, I'm better at this manager thing than you ever were.
You take that back you co*cky little-!
Now now... that's not very "man who knows everything" of you. 
...Enjoy your moment. It ends soon.
This is a stroke of luck on our part-like on day 48, we have a 1-in-3 chance of skipping the Noon, and we managed to hit it again. Dealing with a Noon at the same time as the Arbiter is enough of a hassle that most people advise just resetting when it happens, and if they'd shown up here then the day would have been a lot bloodier than it otherwise would have been. White/Black is the worst pair of Fixers to have show up alongside Binah.
I don't see why you're so mad. It's a fact that I've dealt with these problems before. They're actually why I was able to mount a defense against your bullsh*t in the first place.
You learned from them? The only one who was worth learning from was Carmen, and she's dead now. You've seen her.
And I was horribly traumatized by the experience, yes.
You don't sound horribly traumatized.
I carry it well.
Really? Well, I'll bet you'll slip.
I will not.
See? My aim's perfect. I can shoot around agents all day.
I see
carry on then.
I will, tha-
THE FLESH IS NAUGHT BUT A PRISON WITHIN WHICH OUR TRUE NATURE IS SEALED!
GAH!
All day, you said?
Dude!
Hey boss, while you're doing that can you take out the other one?
Never Execution bullet Clerks anywhere near your Agents when you can't pause! This is basic stuff! Why do I never follow my own advice?! 
Even now, carelessness is the ultimate enemy. 
Anyways, I spend the rest of the level setting up to intercept Binah. Much of the reason she gave us so much trouble when we fought her on day 44 was because we couldn't set up our Agents to avoid her spikes and we couldn't clear the Clerks out-which meant if we weren't careful Big Bird and Mountain would breach.
This time around we've assigned one Agent per hallway, or two to the longer ones. This means each Agent can only realistically be hit by a single spike, which they're all tanky enough to live through.
The boss had better know what he's doing
Backwards Clock? That old relic isn't good for anything. What are you after..?
I thought you knew everything.
Everything that matters.
I also prime Backwards Clock.
Finally, Twee goes to Extraction's main room to greet our incoming guest.
I am nothing if not merciful, nameless one. Let me offer you one final chance to-
Better idea. Let me offer you one last chance. Give up now, and I won't expose you for the cringey supervillain wannabe you are.
I am but a single step away from the completion of my plan, and you call me a "wannabe?!"
Damn right. You're trying way too hard. Assuming you have all of the answers just means that you're running from your own fear.
Oh, is that what you think this is?!
Sure do. The way I see it, you realize the scope of the problem we're dealing with. Your solution, though, is the equivalent of saying "If everyone was dead there would be no conflict." It's true, yes, but that doesn't make it any less sh*tty of a solution.
You don't even know if your plan will work! You don't even know what it is!
Neither do you. And that terrifies you.
How dare you!
If there was no chance, you'd have lorded it over me. If it was a better plan, you'd have accepted it without question. You don't actually know. You can't-because to this point we've had the same opportunities, the same information. There's only one difference between us-I actually got the whole job done.
Haha
hahaha
I can't believe this! Is your mind already becoming a moldly puddle? I thought we would last at least a little longer than this before becoming like that whelp!
It doesn't matter what I say to you. This plan of yours is your escape. It means you don't have to make any more hard choices. You don't have to worry about having any more difficult days managing agents in this deathtrap. You made it to the end and then you gave. Up. Tell me, did you even have a plan when you first got here? Or was that a sort of on-the-fly thing?
I've decided. I'm through being merciful.
Good. Because you're a whole damn box of cringe, and I'm going to throw you back into the back of my closet where I can forget about you forever.
You arrogant, sinful fool... By the time I'm through, you won't have it in you to disagree with me ever again!
Levels 5-7 posted:
Binah spawns in at 5, but we're ready for her.
She begins with her shockwave, and Twee demonstrates that before her first wave goes off, her resistances are actually their normal 0.8x.
Now either you let the Abnormalities rampage, or you lose one of those agents you profess to care for so much!
Yeah
remember the trolley thing?
Same idea.
So you're a hypocrite after all.
The ideal would be to save the agents and kick your ass-but kicking your ass is the priority. A handful of people against the entire City is an easy choice.
We burn our first pause here. It's important to wait for the shockwave to have passed, or else otherwise the meltdowns may not have finished spawning in.
The lower left didn't have any death notices when I paused, so I quickly go through the facility with an Abnormality's window to find who's panicking. Here, The Great Evil King got hit. Their highest stat is Fortitude, which means they'll have a Murder-type panic. That would mean either them killing more Agents, or dragging a lot of them together to snap them out of it.
It's honestly more trouble than it's worth.
Outside of that we just have to make sure to cover every single meltdown that spawned. It's important to make pauses count and spend some extra time on them to ensure you've hit everything-we want to keep them to a minimum. I usually also keep a mental note of anything like Shelter or Yang that needs to be worked, and make sure not to zoom back in until they've been handled.
Once we're prepared, I unpause.
The facility gets to work, but Binah's charging her Fairy attack in Pale damage. As a reminder, that's 220-300 base damage.
It cannot even scratch Twee with her shield from Paradise Lost's special up. 
How is that possible..?!
What happened to knowing everything that mattered? It looks to me like you overlooked something important: my agents are badass!
She falls asleep seconds later, and some of the attackers I ordered on her during the pause come in. Like Red Mist yesterday, the Arbiter only has 60% of her original HP.
This means she goes down fast once the team gets on her. Meanwhile, I pull the camera up to Central and wait. Binah's going to change to Phase 2 before she wakes up and she won't be able to attack without going through another spikes cycle, so the Agents down there are fine.
This is what we're waiting for-the interference means she's entered Phase 2. We want to start working Backwards Clock now, since it has a fairly long startup.
Alright. It's time. I just have to pick someone and-
Don't bother. I'm already there.
Talow?! What are you doing there?
Making the most of the day, or something like that!
If you do that, you're going to die!
That's what I'm counting on!
HAHAHAHA! The springtime of youth, is it? I'll toast your memory!
I as well!
Dammit, if I'd known you were going to do this I wouldn't have wound the thing!
Come on now, kiddo. It's his choice.
...Stupidly dramatic to the end, huh?
Guess so. Hey! Manager!
What's up?
I'm getting really tired of waking up every time I die. No matter what it takes, finish this. If I wake up again in this crapsack facility, I'm going to punch you!
...Got it.
When activated, Backwards Clock instantly suppresses any breaching Abnormality-but it does not work on the Arbiter. More importantly, it instantly clears all meltdowns from any cells that have them.
In exchange for his life, Talow completely trivializes Phase 2 of this fight.
I don't believe this
Backwards Clock?! But that's
useless! No manager would ever need it!
Every Abnormality in this facility has its place. Some of them are really, really niche, but a good manager remembers all their tools!
It doesn't matter
no
no it doesn't matter at all. The Arbiter will
no, I will
I'll take you down! I cannot be defeated! I hold in my hand paradise!
Phase 3.
She begins with another shockwave before starting to set up her Pillars attack.
Can you feel it?! The onrushing tide. It cannot be stopped by your hands!
Hey, Adam. Let me ask you something. Do you know whose TT2 command authorization is higher between Hokma and Binah?
What does that have to do with anything?! Cease your useless jabbering!
Best, know-it-alliest manager of all time, huh? Never even paid attention to the organizational flowchart.
Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!!
This time, though, we can pause. Honestly
I probably didn't need to do this. After around 20 minutes of playtime and accidentally shooting Sephiroth in the head, though, I opted to go with the safe strategy. For once. 
A quick look shows that Credentia and Sorcrane are both panicking now. I let them be, neither one is a particularly problematic panic type for us. From there, I go through and set everyone to work the Abnormalities with the Pillar meltdowns on them.
The panics trigger Punishing Bird's breach and it had one of the meltdowns on it, so we'll be triggering the pillar glitch we saw last time once again.
We unpause, and I focus on hitting the Arbiter with a Slow bullet the moment I start seeing numbers instead of 'IMMUNE.'
This is impossible! You're not better than me! You're nothing! I made you!
What made me wasn't you, Adam. All you did was nearly screw up a 10,000 year plan because you couldn't pull your head out of your own ass.
We pour damage onto the Arbiter.
I am what I've experienced. The second you discarded your history as irrelevant, you lost any ability you had to make the future.
The Arbiter tries another shockwave to set up a second Pillar attack.
You don't know what you're talking about! I haven't discarded anything, I've evolved beyond-
I'm not falling for your crap, Adam!
We pause, and quickly send people to work the meltdowns.
You're a frightened little kid, who faced the fear of the unknown and ran. You hide behind fancy words and false pretenses, and you've bought into your own hype so much you can't even see it anymore!
Once the attack is broken, it's just a matter of time-the Arbiter's attack cooldown won't empty before she's defeated.
We've both been through hell
but at least I didn't bend my back.
No-no, you can't-! The salvation of all humanity depends on this-! Don't
I don't want to disappear!!
In the end, she doesn't leave the Extraction main room.
We're done here. Get the hell out of my groupchat.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Nine..? Tch, more than I would have liked
and in all the chaos I couldn't make out who we lost at the end. Still
thank you all for your help. I won't forget you.
In the end we didn't go beyond a First Trumpet while handling day 49, and got out with a handful of deaths. This was about as smooth a 49 as we could ask for with our current facility. Day 49 is incredibly intimidating, but the ability to set up for Binah takes a lot of the bite out of her if used correctly. That said, don't think things have to be this smooth! Some players reset until the Arbiter goes down through Architecture (Either a 1 in 10 or 1 in 5 chance, depending on how her pathing actually works) and trap her there with Rabbits. Others just go all in on making it to the final Meltdown level while ignoring everything else-it doesn't matter if day 49 goes smoothly or if we scrape by with only 1 Agent left at 3 HP, there's a hidden modifier to our LOB that gives us a minimum of 21 as a reward at the end of the day to prevent us from getting stuck. Because of that...
Any day 49 that we walk away from is a good one.
Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: The Calm.
Bonus
