Toggle Background Color
Chapter 91: 7/29: Pyramid Scheme (New)
This update contains content from Parts 76-77 of the original LP.
We’re going to keep progressing through this place mostly at lightspeed, if that’s all right.
Music: The Days When My Mother Was There
We are going to switch out Skull and Queen for Mona and Panther, though, because their SP is getting pretty low. We’re maybe 1/3 done with the Palace and they’re already running on empty, and Joker’s not doing much better. That’s… troubling.
Also, I neglected to mention in the last update one of my other goals for this Palace. See, we have a Level 27 Anzu in our Persona deck at the moment. The next Strength request requires a Neko Shogun with Dekaja. Anzu happens to be one of the requisite Personas in Neko Shogun’s fusion recipe, and learns Dekaja… at Level 28. Thus, we’ll need to keep Anzu as Joker’s active Persona for quite a bit to get the necessary experience. If we don’t, it’s no huge issue, it’s just annoying because we still haven’t unlocked the Gallows because they pushed it back in Royal! 
Let’s resume.
Rude putting a spike pit there. I almost fell in that!
How’re we supposed to get to the other side with the floor like this?
This is the point where we check our surroundings carefully. There has to be something we can use…
And of course, arrows shoot out of the wall as we pass.
We sail right on by, though.
We are then immediately accosted by more spikes. We’ll have to find another way around to get to Shadow Futaba.
Isis here is actually the last new Shadow in this dungeon, not counting the miniboss that guards the last Will Seed, which we can’t obtain. She’s weak to Psy and nullifies Bless and Curse. She uses Agilao, Garula, and Zionga (Medium Fire, Wind, and Electricity), and Makarakarn (erects a shield that repels 1 magic attack).
Skipping forward a bit, this is the room with the “cursed” orb. We need to ignore it for now.
First, we enter a nearby hallway, pass the currently-inactive arrow trap (that would have become active if we had taken the orb), and deactivate the spike trap from earlier. Then we can go back and take the orb, then take the long way back to get to the spike trap.
This Anubis almost wipes the entire party in a single action.
Joker manages to come out on top, though.
Queen learns Flash Bomb, which she slots in to replace Vajra Blast. It’s basically the same move, hitting all enemies with Medium Physical, except it also inflicts Dizzy.
Oh hey, new fusion alarm. We’ll check in with that after this segment of the Palace.
Panther learns Lullaby, which extends Dormina’s Sleep ailment infliction to the entire enemy party in exchange for hitting a bit less.
Another arrow trap here. This is the “curse” of the other Anubis statue, which is currently empty. We need to put the orb we got from the other statue in that one to lift it.
Hitting a switch in the room opens a door to that statue, letting us progress.
For Fox, we switch out Giant Slice, which is strictly inferior to Rising Slash, for Speed Master, which gives him Sukukaja at the start of battle.
Put the orb in the statue…
Hit the button…
Recklessly fire the ballista. Easy-peasy.
Our first Will Seed is right next to a locked chest. A plethora of riches.
Unfortunately, this weapon for Mona is slightly inferior to the very stupid-looking weapon we have on him now.
And let’s grab the Will Seed.
From here, it’s just a straight shot onto the first mural room.
Gotta unscramble it, right.
This adult seems to be reading something to a crying child? Hm, the emotions of the artist are oft depicted in the art they produce… I can sense… serious pain harbored in her heart.
(Adult Man’s Voice) “I should never have had Futaba…”
Is that voice coming from the mural?
“She was always such a bother…” It seems you caused your mother a great deal of trouble, Futaba-chan… She must have had some kind of maternity neurosis…
“Maternity neurosis” is just such a weirdly translated phrase. It’s both too clinical and not clinical enough, like it’s got this… specific vagueness to it. And it just sounds bad to the ear, like the tenses don’t quite match or something. I think “maternal neurosis” would have been better, just because it feels less… diagnostic? More informal? I dunno. As it is it’s just something no one would ever say.
The reflector turns, shining light that dispels the mural and opens the next door.
Based on its contents, it sounded almost like a suicide note…
Could that be what Futaba remembers of her mother’s suicide?
But that’s the shittiest thing to do to a kid if that’s really how it all went down.
Hold up! Wait a minute! That’s not what you’re supposed to say here, Skull! Roll the tape!
This is from Part #76 of the original LP, the one with the equivalent conversation from the vanilla release. As you can clearly see here, Skull said, and I quote, “fuck.” Well, “fuckin’,” but still. Now, unlike in the original release, this conversation is voiced in Royal. That line was also not particularly badly translated originally. Therefore, the only rational conclusion we can draw is that the localization team knew that Skull is not allowed to say “fuck” and therefore proactively removed the word from this conversation in Royal because it’s voiced now. That’s goddamn hilarious.
Anyway, let’s keep going.
Helpfully, we’re reminded about the alarm when we enter the safe room.
It’s time to head back to the Velvet Room to take care of that alarm.
Music: Aria of the Soul
First, we’re going to fuse Ara Mitama from Kin-Ki and one of the Stone of Scone Treasure Demons we picked up traversing this Palace (weak to Fire).
Because we used a Treasure Demon to fuse it, we have a lot of options for potential Traits. Let’s go with Intense Focus.
Go wild! Ferocity is my true power! Carve my savage anger into that face of yours!
Ara Mitama is one of the mitamas, the four aspects of Shinto thought. It can grant ferocity, or aid inbravery, growth, and endeavors. It’s also got a big angry face, so that should tell you a lot about what kind of aspect it is.
We like a few of those skills, so we’re not going to let them change.
Next up, Decarabia from that Ara Mitama we just made and Clotho. Unfortunately, it’s a Level 32 Persona, and we’re only Level 31.
This Persona is too powerful for your current level of strength. However, given your circumstance, I may be willing to expressly facilitate your rehabilitation. I only ask for 28160 yen—in return, I shall perform the ritual… What are your thoughts?
That’s a pretty exorbitant cost… but sure. It’s nice that they moved up the Strength rank where you get the ability to fuse above your level, but I’m not sure why I went for this Decarabia. It’s not a great Persona (just in terms of having a Physical weakness, sorry starfish man), it’s above my level so I have to pay out the ass to fuse it, and I’m fusing an alarm result Persona so I’m not even going to get this thing at the end of it, it’s 100% going to turn into an accident.
And of course, the guillotine stops.
Here comes the chainsaw!
Lamia is… uh… huh.
From the Megami Tensei wiki: “According to Greek mythology, Lamia was a Libyan queen who fell in love with Zeus and bore him children. Hera became enraged and murdered all of Lamia's children (one version of the tale claims that Hera forced Lamia to kill and eat her own children). Lamia went insane with grief and began kidnapping and eating children, eventually turning into a hideous monster as a result. Legend states that Zeus granted Lamia the ability to remove her own eyes at will so she would not see her dead children when she closed her eyes. In some sources, Lamia became a Naga.”
This Lamia is built to stay alive above all else. We’ll keep it around for a bit until we can fuse Life Aid onto something else, because it regenerates 8% of HP and SP after every battle and that’s a pretty useful skill to have.
And we get kicked out of the Velvet Room.
Music: The Days When My Mother Was There
Let’s just resume from the next section of the Palace. Which one was this again?
Oh, right.
We’re now in the room with the blue and red coffins.
There’s a new glowing red door here, but we’ll come back to that
The first puzzle goes identically to how it went in the original game, we just have to input 1s as “on” and 0s as “off” on the blue side.
However, once we do this, we skip right to the end of the puzzle with the boulders filling the corridor until we break the machine by kicking it. That’s the only mandatory part of this puzzle in Royal. However, we don’t receive the second set of inputs, so we need to find those to open that red door I mentioned previously. You just know they hid a Will Seed or something back there.
Now we can jump across the boulders to make it to the end of the corridor.
…Or, we can turn around and jump across the boulders in the other direction.
Here, we find the second slab.
Now, we just have to input those 0s and 1s into the coffin puzzle. After one failure because I forgot you have to put the reds in backwards, we open the door.
And there was, in fact, a Will Seed.
Time to head back and jump across the boulders again.
And another mural. We’re making loads of progress.
Here’s the annoying mural puzzle where you have to rotate the pieces, but because they’re triangles every piece rotates with a pair so it takes way longer to set up than it should.
Is she… jumping in front of a car?
Could this be the moment when Futaba’s mother committed suicide?
I like how she looks like she’s tripping. It’s like Akechi just walked over and gave her a little shove into traffic. Honestly, that’d be a much better mural.
Hm? Another voice…
(Young Woman’s Voice) …F-Futabaaa… …Y-You… aaaaaareee…
Wakaba sounds beyond apoplectic here. It’s more like she’s going fucking berserk.
…She died right in front of Futaba’s eyes.
That’s horrible…
So, did her desire to forget those memories cause her to repress them?
Normally, I’d probably end this update here, but I really hamstrung myself with that DBZ preview joke. On to the final segment of the Palace!
Remember these statues for later.
Uh-oh, Joker got knocked down!
Thankfully, Sexy Technique is there to save us.
Skull learns Shock Boost to replace Memory Blow.
Blow up this wall with another ballista…
Find another safe room…
It’s easy, Skull. I just hold down L1 98% of the time while I run around.
Get another orb.
Are you ready?
Ooh, new Showtime! Been waiting for this one to finally happen!
Video: Yusuke and Ryuji’s Showtime (Watch this)
I’m runnin’ on empty, man…
Behold…!
Whoaaaaa…
The saucy…
…zesty…
…masterpiece!
Suddenly, shadow darkens the door…
Ain’t nothin’ better than this…!
Skull drops the bite he was about to take! Nooooo!
Rrrgh…
Get out, dumbass!
Here you go, my treat!
And that’s Fox and Skull’s Showtime. Hell yeah, both of Skull’s Showtimes are A+ material. :discourse:
And we get that Dekaja on Anzu. We’ll fuse it into Neko Shogun later.
Oh hey, a fusion alarm, perfect.
We equip that Robe of Hatred onto Ann.
Oh, welp, there’s a safe room. Guess we’re fusing that Neko Shogun now.
Music: Aria of the Soul
First up, Kurama Tengu from Clotho and that accidental Lamia from earlier.
It looks like I’m your mask now, so I guess I get to train you as much as I want.
Kurama Tengu are the most powerful and well-known of the Japanese tengu said to live on Mt. Kurama in Kyoto. They’re said to be exceptional warriors, and can fend off disease and bring good luck.
Losing Magarula for Resist Wind on a Persona that already Repels Wind is a bad trade-off. But Marakukaja is good, so it’s a wash.
Next, I’m going to turn Choronzon into some lovely jewelry with the Electric Chair.
Finally, Neko Shogun from Anzu, Kodama, and Sudama. Kodama and Sudama are not currently in our Persona deck, so we have to pay to resummon them. Thankfully, Igor will do that for us automatically as part of the fusion.
Your future shines bright like a diamond! I am your mask now!
“Neko Shogun” has kind of a weird story. Basically, there was a Chinese general that conquered Vietnam, but his name, Mao, was close to the Chinese word for “cat,” so when the people dedicated a temple to him and worshiped him as a god (as one does), they misnamed it by mistake as “Temple of General Cat.”
We need to keep this as it is for Dekaja to stick for the Strength request.
We won’t be fulfilling that request right now, though. Let’s just finish the Palace first.
Music: The Days When My Mother Was There
Yadda yadda we fight another coffin that turns us into rats.
When we get out of that fight, we have to turn around and pick up a ~hidden~ orb. What did we do with the orb we picked up earlier? We put it in a receptacle to raise some platforms. I neglected to take a screenshot of this and I can’t be fucked to go back. Full speed ahead!
From there, we just run around some more, placing that last orb in another receptacle, until we leave that room.
The path forward is currently blocked, but we can grapple around this. Also, there’s a Will Seed nearby to find.
And we slap that Helper Knife on Joker.
We can kick down this plank to unblock the path from earlier.
And there’s another grapple point on the same platform.
We’re in for a tough battle—are you ready?
We’ve found the final Will Seed.
YOU NOT PASS. HERE YOU DIE!
This is kind of an annoying fight against the Decadent False God for Fox because this thing repels Physical and Gun and Absorbs Ice. However, there’s really nothing else to worry about. It uses Bufudyne to deal Heavy Ice damage, I guess. Maybe bring Mona and Queen instead of Fox and Panther, though with Panther you can easily take advantage of its Fire weakness.
And that’s all three.
I see the localization team correctly translated the sin as “Wrath” this time.
Well, let’s bounce.
Simple.
A child pulling on her mother’s clothes?
(Girl’s Voice) …Mom…
More voices…
I’m… I’m tired of eating dinner alone all the time. It’s always just convenience store bentos… I wanna go somewhere. Take me on a trip!
The one clinging to her mother would be Futaba-chan, right?
I dunno, Ann, it only looks exactly like her Shadow.
(Young Woman’s Voice) Don’t be so selfish! You know I’m working hard to support you, right!? Ugh!
Is that the maternity neurosis the voice from earlier mentioned?
I thought it was pretty normal for a child to want to spend time with their parents, though…
Yeah. Looks like Futaba was a pretty lonely kid growin’ up…
So these incidents compounded, forcing her mother to suicide?
Suddenly, Shadow Futaba appears!
Huh?
I killed her… That’s why I’m here in this tomb…
Don’t say that!
I will die…
Futaba disappears again.
Why’d she get so quiet all of a sudden? What happened to that snarky personality?
Could her heart perhaps be growing weaker?
We have to hurry and save her!
Music: Suspicion
Hm? This door…
It looks familiar…
Oh! Futaba’s room!
That’s it!
It’s funny that it’s supposed to remind us of Futaba’s room door, but I have never once noticed what is actually on that door because it’s kind of dark and not in focus in the only scene it’s been in previously.
Why ain’t it openin’?
It must be her cognition that no one can enter it.
Beyond lies the Pharoah’s Chamber.
So the Treasure’s through here?
Indeed. However, you need my permission to open this door.
Then open it for us.
I cannot. You must have her invite you in.
What the eff. Ain’t this your Palace?
What’s she mean, Mona?
The Shadow is Futaba, but not Futaba herself.
Not a helpful sentence. Honestly just made it worse.
In other words, we need the real Futaba’s permission.
So, we need to have Futaba-chan open her room and let us in?
But I remember Boss saying that she won’t let anyone in.
Mainly doctors. Hey, maybe she’s one of those antivaxx freaks who doesn’t trust medicine!
I can’t tell if she’s absolutely not that type or absolutely not… But anyway, she’s a hardcore shut-in for sure.
How will we convince her to allow us entry?
Standing around here won’t help. We’ll just have to give it a try… That’s what she wants, after all.
I think that we should do it too, even if it means we have to force ourselves in.
Gettin’ a little excited about the idea of breaking into a teenage girl’s room, Panther.
Yeah, normally you’d be the one for that kind of perverted crap.
OHHHHHHHHH!
…That aside, we’ll have to sneak in again.
Joker, it’s your call when we do this. Make sure you think of some excuses just in case Boss catches us.
Already got one: “I was looking for assorted kinckknacks to pilfer and hock over at the secondhand store.”
Any excuses that *won’t* lead to your eviction and arrest?
Honestly, I think that excuse is less dangerous than telling Sojiro the truth that we kept messing with his daughter after he told us to leave her alone.
Oh, right. I need the calling card Alibaba sent us. We’ll make it into a real one and steal the Treasure right after we give it to her.
Queen, help me think of what to write.
I suppose…
We got this covered. You decide on a good time we barge into her room! That’s all you!
The more we phrase this so violently, the more I have second thoughts about it…
And that’s the Palace. We’ve got a little more to do before we head back to the real world, but we’ll save that for next time.