Message of the Day – Persona wielding is a very difficult task that is based on your mental willpower. Some Personae are like battle-companions. They're smaller, weaker, but much more versatile and easy to summon. Others are much more difficult to summon, requiring a lot of concentration before using! Change your fighting style accordingly! Visit the simulation rooms on floors seven through ten to practice.
"Even something as simple as this is surreal," Carl "Zerez" Lloyd commented as the elevator opened to the 50th floor. In front of him was a classic café, with a multitude of players at simple yet fancy tables. "I guess you do get a sense of taste in this game."
"Taste" could be used very often when talking about the details in Immersion. For instance, the café itself was tasteful, with its typical quiet classy appearance. There were multiple sections to the café, all with tall ornate curved walls having draping flowers and greenery complementing them. Zerez figured he would probably come back to the area sometime, though dressed a little better than he was. It wasn't that he thought that his black jeans sporting black chains on them and his dragon-imprinted black shirt was particularly out of context to the café. I mean, you could be totally casual and still fit in perfectly. Even with his ring on his right finger and short brown hair above his black-framed glasses (covering very location appropriate hazel green eyes), he would decide to change his clothes simply because he wanted to challenge his creative mind to see if he could design something as simple as his clothing to match the scenery around him. Zerez wasn't into fashion, per se, as much as he was into exploring creativity, and in a world as intricate as Immersion, he could see himself doing that in ways he never imagined.
The con to this was that Zerez wasn't exactly…outgoing. He preferred to stay by himself and do his own thing, so maybe the café idea wasn't as good as Zerez had first imagined.
"Welcome to Chagall Café," an attendant standing behind a podium said to the player, as if the encounter with her was destined by the fact that Zerez was just thinking about keeping the quest quick and quiet. "Let's see some info…ok. You're just on your first quest. I'll explain some things to you about this floor."
"Please do," Zerez smiled regardless of his feelings. Being withdrawn didn't mean he had to be cold, of course.
The attendant gave a warm smile of her own before explaining, "This floor houses the Chagall Café, several quiet rooms for meditation, and a library sponsored by the Kirijo Group."
Zerez nodded as he looked out and viewed the café. Then interior looked much like classic cafés, albeit larger. A large portion wall near the serving counter opened out into a large hallway that hugged the large glass windows of the building. It gave a lot of natural light and atmosphere to the room, and Zerez assumed that would be the case for most of the floor.
"Now, please open your quest menu," the attendant asked. Zerez did so, opening it his personal console and checking on the quests tab. "From this point on, you're going to be able to manage what quests you're on, though you'll still receive cues from your visor."
"Speaking of which, when do I get to refit these?" Zerez said as he took off the glasses, taking a look at them. It wasn't that he didn't like the glasses. They just weren't his glasses.
"Your display? Hm…I think I've heard some of our customers say soon after your first mission you're free to go to a clothing customizer and refit your clothes and gear. Back on track, though, let me teach you something. Open the quest window for the quest you're on and press 'Track'," the attendant explained, actually pulling out her own console and showing with a quest titled "Test."
Zerez looked at his quest menu. "Um…the bottom floor told me where the quest was, but didn't actually give me the quest."
The attendant scurried through her menus, pressing a series of buttons until the familiar red flashing signaled a received quest. "I forgot…sorry about that."
Zerez just nodded as he stared at the quest tilted "Releasing Potential" now on the list.
"Make it your active quest," the attendant said, pointing to a "Make Active" option on the quest screen. Zerez did so and mission details started appearing on the top-left of his vizor.
Releasing Potential
Mission Details:
[] Meet with a Persona trainer in one of the 50th floor meditation rooms.
Zerez followed the earlier instructions and pressed "Track." A light white ball appeared on his visor and shot out of the café, taking a sharp right and out of Zerez's vision.
"You should have seen a tracker fire out. It'll lead you to where you need to go," the attendant told Zerez as she closed her console. "Any questions?"
"Nope. Thanks for the help! I hope I didn't hold anyone behind…" Zerez said as he looked around, surprisingly seeing no one behind me. He took another look around and saw several other elevators with both regular and first quest players (obvious by the fumbling on their respective consoles) leaving other elevators around the café.
"Nope! We have many mo-"
"Noticed as soon as I said it," Zerez lightly facepalmed himself with a laugh as he started to walk away.
"Oh! One more thing!" The attendant grabbed Zerez's hand and guided it up the one of the glasses' arm. She guided him to press a button and the tracker fired out of his vision again. "Wanna know the cool part? There's two buttons on the sides of the default glasses. You can actually will the functions of them. Call button? Just think about it and it's a call button."
"T-That's…actually amazing," Zerez blinked, his creative mind already thinking of the possibilities. "Thank you for everything…um…Lily?"
"I see you're still getting used to actually noticing the name tags on your display," the attendant giggled. "Off with you~"
Zerez laughed with her as he walked out of the café. As soon as he did walked out into the hallway, he stopped. In front of him was one of the outer walls of Network HQ. At fifty stories up, Zerez has an amazing view, being able to see out to the very outskirts. He immediately noticed two things. One, the buildings got shorter as you progressed away from the main HQ, with several noticeable exceptions. Future quest locations, most likely. Second, he noticed the sheer size of everything the buildings around him. It was by coincidence that he was able to see the outskirts of the city. From where he was standing, several large buildings obstructed his view. In reality, he was looking at the outskirts of the city through a narrow view between the cityscape. He looked up to the buildings close to HQ, seeing them cut off around…Zerez guessed it to be at least eighty floors. Network HQ had about one-hundred total, right? If the game's city was inspired by a real life city, either it was the most hidden technological wonder in the world, or the Immersion designers…spruced it up a bit. Zerez couldn't help but feel a bit jealous of the opportunity the art designers must have had creating just the city.
"Impressive, huh?" a voice snuck up beside him.
Zerez turned to his right to see a red-eyed girl slightly shorter than him with a short ponytail styling her auburn hair looking out on the city. "Sure."
"That's all?" The girl looked up to him with a puzzled look. "Most of the players I've talked to are still in awe the more they explore."
Zerez scratched his head. "S-Sorry…just trying to take it all in," he lied. In reality, he kinda just wanted to move on and play the game himself.
"I hear you. This view kinda sucks," the girl said, looking out to the same slightly blocked view as Zerez. Zerez took the time to notice what she was wearing. She wore a buttoned soft black trench-coat with blue jeans poking out of the bottom, brown leather shoes finishing off her simple attire. Most noticeably, though, were the red "Audio-Techinica" headphones half covered by the trench-coat collar, and the barrettes clipping her hair back forming the roman numeral XXII. Was there some significance to that? Zerez didn't know what it was, but most people aren't meticulous enough to do something subtle like that without a purpose or, conversely, dense enough to do it accidentally.
"You there, Zerez?" the girl waved her hand in front of Zerez. "You kinda spaced out…um…staring at me. A-Anyways…"
"N-No! Just thinking, is all. Those are pretty cool headphones," he stuttered, slightly embarrassed to find out he was staring.
"I agree!" the girl chirped back. "Me and my brother had the same pair of headphones our junior year of high school."
Had? Her usage of the word had could go several different ways, and Zerez didn't really want to explore any of them.
"Anyways, you should go to one of the higher floors one day. They have a much better view of the city! Floor 90 has the Sky Terrace. If you go outside, you'll notice a ring hanging around off of the side of the building. Not only does it coolly top of the pointed top of the HQ, but you can walk around inside it and the floor and most of the walls are glass!" the girl excitedly said as she talked more and more about it.
"That sounds cool and all, but I've got to finish this quest," Zerez said, keeping a smile the best he could. In all honesty, though, he was pretty interested in the view. "Nice to meet you…um…damn it. When you can just see someone's name, how can you introduce yourself normally?"
The girl giggled. "You're right. It does take away the entire point of introducing someone. Like, I could just straight up call you Zerez without ever meeting you before. One of those strange online MMO cultural things, I suppose."
"I suppose your right. At any rate, nice to meet you, Eurydice," Zerez said as he held his hand out. Eurydice shook it, following with a light bow.
"See you around," the girl said as she joyfully walked away. Zerez clicked his tracker. The ball flew in the opposite direction from where she was going, of course. He made his way across the floor, smiling at his prediction about the floors design and how it allowed for the natural light to make it feel more homely. That was a desirable theme with libraries and cafés, after all. Many twists and turns later, and Zerez found himself walking into an open door room with the large back wall lined with about two dozen doors. As players opened the doors, they revealed red vortexes rather than the inside of a room. It was a pretty large room, with at the very least one-hundred players filling the inside with chatter. The players were all either talking to groups of friends or rushing through the portals to enter a quest.
"So much for meditation rooms…" Zerez sighed, hoping it would be a bit more peaceful inside the rooms and that the vortex was soundproof. The room he soon entered was a basic square in shape, with the back wall opposite of the door being the wall-sized glass windows. In the center was an ornate blue circle with a mask inscribed on it. The mask was half light blue and half dark blue with a basic face's pattern on it. Behind the circle a multi-pointed star streaked around the background, finishing the pattern.
Aside from the mask, however, of special interest to Zerez was the girl standing across from him, though.
Entering Group Phase
"I was under the impression that this mission would be solo," the girl, appearing on Zerez's display as "Taiga" said.
"Oddly enough, so was I," Zerez retorted.
"Oh, don't get me wrong." Taiga raised her arms in a somewhat apologetic way. "I'm not offended by you being here or anything."
"I don't really care, I guess," Zerez replied, not really knowing what to say. "I've just been going along with things. I'm more interested just getting to a point where I go and do my own thing."
Taiga raised an eyebrow. "Then why play an online MMO? Not saying there's anything wrong with playing alone, of course. I mean, personally, I can imagine not wanting to play with children, but still. It's not unavoidable."
"And pass up on a creative landscape like this? It's…inspiring."
The two players stood in relative silence for another minute or two before Taiga spoke up again.
"It's odd. I don't see a mission objective," she commented, noting how her quest Releasing Potential wasn't giving a bullet underneath for the next objective. The earlier one didn't mark itself as completed, but disappeared altogether.
"What could that m-" Zerez started but was cut off by an echoing clapping behind him. He noticed Taiga's expression go into shock as she instantly armed herself with a spear. He himself turned around and gave the same impression.
"Children of man, in search for a mask to protect them," the man from the train said to the two players. Zerez played through the single-player mission, finding himself battling through a train and having to nimbly evade the man and escape by disconnecting the train cars. If he had to evade him then, what would he do in a closed room with him? "But it's nothing but a mask, hiding your true feelings and ambitions."
"These meetings are getting eerily personal," Taiga muttered aloud.
"Ohoho! Then you'll be especially happy to hear that this meeting is especially personal, Taiga!"
Taiga's heart skipped a beat. She knew he could see her username, but hearing him actually say it? That was borderline insane coming from something that was supposed to be a simple learning AI.
"I'm here to give you both an option. I'll teach one of you personally how to use a Persona. Maybe even more than just how to summon a Persona! My time, however, can only be wasted on one of you, however. You have to eliminate the other player," he laughed, grinning with his familiar evil smile. As cliché as it was to call an evil character's smile…evil, it was much too fitting.
Zerez looked back to Taiga, who was gripping her spear with a little less conviction. He hesitantly summoned his naginata, a Japanese pole-sword like weapon, hoping that Taiga wouldn't assume he was out and ready to fight. Thankfully, she didn't attack, still looking as confused and hesitant as he did.
The black-robed man sighed. "I'll throw out an addendum, you cowards. Kill each other, or I'll kill you both."
"I-It's just a game," Taiga said hesitantly. She wanted to believe with all of her heart that there would be some loophole around the situation. She wanted to believe something that wasn't realistic. She didn't want to do the wrong thing and strike an actual person down for another sadistic man's pleasure, whether it was a game or not.
Zerez, on the other hand, was uncomfortable with the entire situation as well. He needed to move on, but the man called Taiga by her name when he was supposed to be just some generic part of the game. There was something…scary going on. Zerez was hesitant to make any motions, wanting Taiga to make the first move. He didn't particularly want to fight in the first place, but he didn't see another way out.
With a scoff, Taiga made her first move, dropping the spear to the ground.
"And your opponent disarms herself! Quite the devious move! Quickly, go for the kill before she triggers an ingenious tr-"
"Stop!" a girl from behind the man shouted, having burst in the room through the "LOCKED" door, seemingly not affecting her. With a giant war hammer, she slammed down towards the man, forcing him to cut off his speech and attempt to stop the hammer. He succeeded in his block, managing to do it with one hand even though her was bending back from the stress with his knees buckling.
"You bitch!" the man shouted as he pushed his hand up from his bent back position, pushing the girl and the hammer back before backing himself up to a corner. Taiga and Zerez retreated to the opposite empty back corners of the room, holding out their weapons pointed at the man as well. The girl, using the username "flower_bud," was back into a combat stance as well, gripping the heavy hammer with apparent ease. She work a science fiction inspirsed black and neon blue long sleeved jacket along with baggy grey shorts and combat boots.
"See, I don't even know how to reply to children like you who can't even come up with a name," the man snorted.
"'Flower' is fine. Remember it, since it's the last thing you'll hear for a while, Visum," the girl said in a quiet, serious matter. "Perso-"
Just as the girl was about to finish what she was saying, Visum summoned two sleek black swords in his hands and dashed at her.
Zerez through quick-thinking and sheer instinct did the same thing he did in the train tutorial mission to escape. He quickly channeled his Persona mentally and focused the energy to his naginata. With a downward swipe, he fired a small shockwave of fire at Visum. All in the matter of about two seconds, Visum had dived at Flower and quickly had to dodge to the side. Flower dodged in the opposite direction, now occupying the fourth corner of the room.
"That was fast," both Taiga and Flower thought, though Taiga didn't keep her eyes off of Visum.
"Hmph, a round well played," Visum frowned as a dark portal opened under him and he slowly sank into it.
"Hope I can do this as smoothly as you could, Shotsujin," Taiga said to herself as she took an opportunity to try and get one last attack in. Infusing her spear with light, though she didn't exactly know how that would end up or if it would work the way she hoped, she tossed the spear forward at Visum. The spear didn't travel extremely fast or steadily, however, and Visum grabbed the spear and it passed his side and sunk into the ground with an eye-contact smirk towards the now extremely pissed off dark-brown haired spear-user.
"Come on! Give us some answers!" Taiga shouted.
"Wha-oh! S-Sorry…I kinda spaced out right there," Flower said nervously, "There's just a lot to think about…like what's going to happen when I get you to my superior."
Zerez just watched the two interact, noting Flower's nervousness and meekness. He tried not to show nervousness, but he was about as withdrawn as she was. Then again, the encounter with that Visum guy wasn't exactly a stress free encounter.
"To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to tell you and what I need to keep my mouth shut about," Flower said the elevator made a stop. The door opened to reveal a spacious room, lined with marble columns and a receptionist's desk towards the opposite wall. The ground had the same shiny gray marble as the pillars, though it was slightly darker to not match them, while the left wall had a hallway extending from it and the right wall revealed a windowed side wall of the building, giving a full, interrupted view of the city. Throughout the room, multiple players were scurrying about, some with consoles open and others chatting through headsets and other devices. Several of the players walked by the group as soon as they exited, leaving for whatever business they needed to conduct. Flower herself opened a console through a wrist mounted mini-computer and quickly sent a message. With a head motion, she beckoned the other two players to follow her.
Taiga and Zerez both nodded, following the strange girl through a series of hallways. The first thing Taiga noticed was how this floor looked much more professional than the others had so far. Not to say the others weren't professionally done, but this was more…business like. It even reminded her of a government building's interior.
"I'm assuming you guys aren't regular players," Taiga directed at Flower.
"Is it ok to tell her?" Flower muttered to herself quietly. Taiga raised an eyebrow, hearing nothing but a whisper.
"I'm also assuming you don't really know that much yourself," Taiga sighed, a small bit of annoyance evident.
Zerez walked behind the two in a relatively awkward silence. Flower reminded him of himself. She was slightly withdrawn unless spurred, though it seemed that she was a bit more spaced out. Overall, he figured she was probably hesitant to do most things unless she knew with certainty what she was supposed to do.
"I'm a moderator," Flower answered Taiga after another minute of walking. "We're here."
The three players approached a large metal door with an ornate series of symmetrical designs inscribed on it. Flower stopped and pressed a button into the console she brought up next to the door. After a few silent moments, the door slowly opened to reveal a very large room looking much like an important businessman's room, though as spacious as a small ballroom. A grand gold-rimmed red carpet rolled across the shining wooden floor, marking itself as the centerpiece for a left wall filled with books and a right wall housing a multitude of consoles. Everything from news to maps filled the information on the consoles with them all constantly moving around. In front of them, however, was a clean and orderly desk with a mysterious woman in the chair behind it.
Her face was covered by a velvet butterfly mask, covering her eyes and nose but not her mouth. Her hair was long and wavy and a slightly dark shade of red. She wore a large buttoned white fur coat, with nothing else being readily visible from her sitting pose.
"Thank you for coming so soon, Miss Lei," the woman said with a smile.
"Y-Yes," Flower gave a quick bow before edging on other players from behind to move forward while she stayed near the door.
"Let me set up some chairs," the woman said as she brought up her personal console and typed in a command, summoning two chairs in front of her desk. As the two players took their seats, she said, "I apologize for apparently wasting your time with this, but it is a serious matter. It appears you two have experienced the dynamic quest system of Immersion quite directly soon into your adventures."
Zerez wanted to say something. He had questions, such as "why couldn't he just go off and have fun his way" or "how is this game so well designed from an artistic point of view" or something. Something about the woman in front of the made him hesitant to say a word, though. This felt like way more than just a game he could leave at any time.
Another fact grabbed both players' attention. Neither one of them were able to see a username connected to the mysterious woman. Where it was supposed to be, it was just blank.
"What was really supposed to happen in that room?" Taiga asked immediately without hesitation.
The woman gave a coy smirk. "Let me introduce myself first. I am the Administrator."
"Is that related to the term 'Game Master' at all?" Taiga asked. She hadn't played many games, but she knew the basic terms she'd need to know to get around.
"I suppose you could say that I'm the head GM," the Administrator replied. "As for your earlier question, it's very simple. An attendant was supposed to talk to you and guide you through the process of summoning a Persona, though that could have ended in several different ways depending on your success."
"Our success?" Zerez questioned.
"Some can summon Personae easier than others. Regardless, you both have another situation entirely that we need to talk about," the Administrator frowned. "I brought you here because I wanted to let you know that Visum's appearance will have a far-reaching effect on your gameplay from this point on. Whether it's negative or positive will depend solely on your actions with the quest line you will receive."
Zerez sighed inwardly. Truthfully, he just wanted to get some time alone soon to think about what had happened up till then. He found it all interesting, for sure, but he would have to see if the potential positives were something he was actually interested in.
"Can you explain why?" Taiga asked the Administrator. "Why did that guy show up? Why did he enter the room when it was obviously designed as a solo mission."
"I'm honestly not sure why-"
"Aren't you the Administrator?" Zerez spoke up. "Aren't you supposed to know what's going on in your own g-"
"As I was about to explain…" the Administrator said as she stared dead into Zerez's eyes, running a chill up his spine. "I don't know because this game's program runs deeper than we can imagine. You've witnessed the fact that a learning AI exists in this world, correct?"
"As in NPCs and other things will take observed situations, learn from then, and then and apply them later, if not immediately, correct?" Taiga answered, attempting to confirm her hypothesis.
"Precisely. This entire world runs on that kind of code. Situations happen that we cannot explain. My guess from looking at the information regarding your incident suggests that Zerez has so much potential that instead of going off into his own meditation room, his will broke into another meditation room. Your room, Taiga," the Administrator explained.
"H-How does that make any sense," Zerez leaned back, placing a hand on his forehead. "What does an abstract term like potential mean in a video game? How does one measure this potential?"
The Administrator looked behind the players to Flower. "It will be easier to show you an example of potential. Summon your Persona, Miss Lei."
"O-Of course, madam!" the Malaysian girl responded quickly as she took a deep breath and focused. A card appeared in front of her with the back holding the same design as the mask on the floor from earlier. The other side had a picture of her Persona. "Come forth, Calliope!"
With a quick slash of her arm, she shattered the card like glass and her Persona faded into existence. Since it was the first time they had witnessed a Persona, Taiga and Zerez moved back out of instinct as a woman in a regal white gown appeared. Her face was chrome in color and her eyes were hollow, having no mouth below them. Her hair was long and flowing, black in color, while around her floated an intricate scroll with endless writing inscribed in black ink.
"Your Persona is a mask to defend and guide you during your journey. It is a reflection of your psyche, and a representation of yourself. I'm very interested to see what you both have that attracted Visum to you. Perhaps it was a random occurrence? Perhaps he sensed something? Let's find out." the Administrator stated.
"W-What's with this game?" Zerez whispered to himself under his breath, eyeing Flower's Persona.
"I'll teach you personally what you were supposed to learn in that meditation room. In Immersion, in order to summon a Persona, you must expend mental energy to give it form. But what is your Persona's form? Meditate on it and focus. You've already been able to channel energy from your Persona. Think the same way, but focus your energy towards finding it and shaping it. That card that Flower had is the first step to summoning your Persona," the Administrator explained from her chair.
Taiga nodded, focusing her mind much like the Administrator explained. The faint image of her Persona flashed across her mind's eye, and her actual eyes widened as she began to understand what to do. After only a few more moments, she got up and turned around to the large room's space. A card appeared in front of her and she quickly grasped it in her hand, shattering it much like Flower did.
"Nemesis!" she shouted. "I-I don't know how I know your name…but I'm glad you're here."
In front of her was a gray Persona with a painted smile between a vertical spiked wheel running through the mid-section and the top of the body. It towered over Taiga, being about twice as tall.
"So Nemesis is the one to heed your call. One of my dear friends possesses the same Persona, albeit yours seems more feminine in general," the Administrator mused. Taiga took a deep breath as she willed her Persona to leave.
"G-Good job," Zerez smiled to Taiga, who returned the smile with a sense of pride.
"Zerez. Please," the Administrator motioned to him. Zerez stood up, trying to focus the same way.
"I…I don't think I'll be able to summon it," Zerez said in a strained voice. He was searching and focusing, but he felt like he couldn't pick out his Persona from the energy clouding it in his mind. There was power. A lot of power. So much power, in fact, that he was having a hard time channeling it into a physical form.
"This should be interesting," the Administrator said with tone of building light excitement.
"I think I've got it," Zerez said quietly. A card started to form in front him, though it was fading in slowly. He took breaths that were deeper and deeper. His breathing was almost like a small sign that showed his pulsating mental energy. It was like a heartbeat getting deeper and stronger. The trend continued and repeated until the card fully formed in front of Zerez.
In a passionate shout, Zerez yelled, "Persona! Come forth, Tiamat!"
A shaking was felt in the room as the Administrator and Taiga braced their selves to the desk, while Flower was on the other side taking a knee before she fell over. A large dragon, almost taking up then entire room in front of Zerez, was forming slowly from a transparent form. It was covered in dark brown scales and looked like a traditional dragon outside of the fact that it had no claws, only wings and feet, and five ferocious heads, all moving around and screaming. The room shook as the Administrator quickly summoned a rapier in her hand and jumped over her desk. She spun the summoner around and shoved him to the ground, thrusting her sword directly in front of a panicked and out of control Zerez. His expression froze in fear as the Persona started to dissipate and the room stopped shaking.
"Consider this an early lesson to take to heart. It takes a fair amount of concentration to hold onto control of your Persona. If you become panicked, you'll lose control," she explained, de-virtualizing her rapier.
The large steel doors opened slowly as a figure wearing a blue velvet robe ran into the room. Their face was covered by both the hood and another mask looking like the back of those cards. The mask along with the robe covered almost all features of the person. Both Taiga and Zerez, the latter of which was still flustered by the overwhelming experience from earlier, noticed that this person actually had a username, opposed to the Administrator's lack of one. Something also to note was the presence of at least a dozen other players, much like Flower.
"Is everything ok, Administrator?" the masked figure, GM Yuzu, asked in a panicked tone. The voice was female, and by the sounds of it, she was very worried.
"Everything is under control, Yuzu," the Administrator smiled. "Our guest has high potential and needs only to learn how to wield it. Miss Lei. Please escort our guests back to a regular lobby and explain the Dispatcher system to them."
"U-Understood, Administrator," Flower politely bowed, walking towards the two players.
"Regarding Visum," the Administrator said quietly to the players before Flower reached him. "You'll start receiving messages and quests about them in time. Just concentrate on learning about Immersion and your powers."
"Let's go," Flower smiled, meekly waiting to the players to follow. Taiga looked back at the Administrator. Just who was she? Just how deep did this game go? Quietly, they both followed Flower out of the room, past the multitude of other players and the other GM.
When they left, the Administrator said in a loud, commanding voice, "I appreciate your concern. Moderators, thank you all for the concern. You man continue on with your work."
At that command, the moderators left dispersed from around the door, while Yuzu walked up to the Administrator. "I've been getting reports of Visum interrupting more players."
"I wonder what he's up to…" the Administrator said as she walked over to the consoles on the side of the room, staring at a camera on the wall Taiga and Zerez were walking down with Flower. "Igor told me that he would eventually start acting upon his own motivations. He appears to just be targeting players who have high potential."
"Of course, that's not the only way to measure success," Yuzu said, jumping up on the desk, her velvet cloak just barely hanging over the floor. "Why do we have to use him, anyway?"
"It was explained to me that he was an integral part to the plan. Although not even the Velvet Room knows exactly what's going to happen. They know who and what he is, but they won't tell me the exact details," the Administrator explained.
"I'd normally start flipping out about our right to know, but that won't get us anywhere," Yuzu sighed.
"You've grown," the Administrator turned and smiled.
"I'm just glad you can't see my face right now," Yuzu laughed.
"Let's sum up what we know about Visum so far. He's the main 'villian' presented to players, though we know that the version of Visum they see in these instances are simply pre-programmed. The real Visum is out there, and he's more than just a programmed script," the Administrator said, typing out her notes as she said them.
"Maybe if you kill the real Visum, the rest will die and everything will change? So then the next question is, who is Visum?" Yuzu continued on. "Or rather, what is he? I wonder how he's connected to all of this…"
The Administrator sighed. "And all of this on top of several different agendas. We still have to present this as a game at the end of the day. We still have unpredictable world events, events and quest that we as an administration group have chosen to give, and the fact that what we're doing is going to have far reaching effects."
"I take back what I said about not flipping out." Yuzu gave an audible growl, obviously quickly getting fed up with the situation. "There's too much at stake for us to not know everything! Especially with how much this is connected to-"
"Enough," the Administrator interrupted calmly, though bluntly. Yuzu immediately stopped, her mask showing a blank expression as she stared at the Administrator. "I know it's frustrating, but there are things going on that we can't even begin to comprehend. We're going to have to live with the fact that we're in the dark for now to make sure that the Velvet Room as a level of control since we can't wield that power ourselves."
"I…I know," Yuzu said dejectedly. "In the end, though, you know it sucks to basically be on the sidelines."
"Maybe we're not on the sidelines," the Administrator said as the final camera on the 100th floor lost sight of Taiga and Zerez as they entered the elevator. "Think about what they did. They reached out to regular people and drew on that power."
"I suppose that's our goal. To watch and guide this unique representation of humanity," Yuzu spoke softly, in as much deep thought as the Administrator. "The quests that we designed…we didn't walk out unscathed. They may not get the physical pain, but mentally…is it ok?"
"Would you rather the world fell?" the Administrator retorted bluntly.
"At least the same thing won't be at stake for most of these guys…" Yuzu sighed.
"We will make sure nothing goes wrong," the Administrator said as she stepped away from the consoles. "Regardless of how much we don't know and how deep in the darkness we are, we will not abandon the promises we made at the start of all of this."
Yuzu just stood up silently. "I'm going to start personally intercepting Visum."
"Stay safe. The stakes are much higher for us than them. It's only a game for others, but for us, it's everything," the Administrator warned. "I can't afford to lose my valuable GMs for an entire week."
"Thanks. By the way, it was a good call to try and hide physical identities and info," Yuzu said as she walked towards the door. "I'd hate to imagine what the more research savvy players would find out if they knew who we were. That'd be a mess."
"Same orders to you as the moderators. Send any players to me so I can explain the situations from the top," The Administrator looked down to the Velvet Key in her hand that she summoned while turning around to the door that only a select few could see. "I'm going to try and illuminate some of the darkness while you're gone. If I'm just staring at the wall, wait for me."
Some things to clarify in this A/N. Yuzu is not Yuzu from SMT: Devil Survivor. I'll be taking cues from other games in the SMT universe, in case you notice some familiar though unique spells not from Persona making appearances, such as the melee skills like Deathbound.
I continuously think of things to explain about the Immersion universe that I try to answer in author notes as I go, but in the end, there's a lot. Something I can't/won't explain, but if you ever have any questions, please ask away in a review or even a PM! Thusly, I'm starting reviewer responses in author notes.
As always, thanks for reading!
Reviewer Responses:
Demons Anarchy of Pride – If you have a account, I'd prefer if you sent me your OC in a DM so I can actively communicate with you about your character and changes that need to be made so he fits. Please contact me if you have one!
OC Credits:
Zerez (Carl Lloyd) – Pharaoh Ra
Taiga (Alice Long) – MrMissMrs Random
flower_bud (Feng Lei) – Rhapsody Duskbane (I sorta had to write out Flower to make her username make sense in spoken dialogue. If this wasn't your intention and you're not fine with it, please contact me so we can work something out. I'll still be making illusions to her actual username, so I'm not changing it altogether, but for most conversations and descriptions, I'm going to have to just Flower over flower_bud.)