☆THE PLOT SO FAR: ENDGAME EDITION

[interdimanagers]

☆THE PLOT SO FAR

I've gotten some requests for a summary of the general metaplot of the game so far, in order to make the most of the endgame experience. As such, I've written one up to the best of my ability! I hope it is informative. I've explicitly stated a few plot points in here that were only hinted at or suggested before. It ends right where we are, at the beginning of the WORLD TOUR. You can ask questions on this post about ideas for plot as well!


JULY - SEPTEMBER 2054: The first batch of player characters are finished being “processed” by the labels. Humanized and brainwashed, they are sent on an Americana wide tour, believing themselves to have just been recruited by Pride or Virgo as new musical sensations. Throughout the tours, both labels are haunted by the ghosts of the late Crescendolls, who are attempting to warn them about what’s been done to them.

OCTOBER 2054: Both labels return to Vista City in time for a fancy Halloween-themed awards ceremony. The ghosts of the Crescendolls follow them, connecting to them spiritually in an attempt to bring back their erased memories. Their limited success is enough to unnerve most of the guests. Lesedi Santiago and Edward Blanche realize what is happening and argue about whose fault the ghosts are. Eventually, the two of them leave the ceremony long enough to use their power to chase off the ghosts, though Blanche intentionally snubs Lesedi while doing so. They both return to the party briefly before Lesedi throws Blanche’s wine at him in a rage and demands that all of Pride return to HQ.

OCTOBER 2054: Predator, a veteran Pride Records industrial rock band, decides to “haze” the newbie Pride bands by kidnapping them away to their privately owned theme park and forcing them to engage in Saw-like horror “trials” that mostly involve rescuing bandmates from seemingly life threatening situations. Predator members Jenny and Cass show evidence of having supernatural abilities that they use to propagate the ruse, and any near “deaths” seem to be averted at the last moment by unknown means. Groups that “fail” their trials lose consciousness, only to wake up in circus style animal cages. Predator mocks them in front of the rest of the group, and say that those that have passed their trials have earned a favour from Predator, to be used at any time. No one is very pleased with this, and it mostly inspires a few failed attempts at fighting the band before everyone is sent home, significantly worse for wear.

OCTOBER 2054: Meanwhile, Juno, a high level Virgo member and personal assistant of Edward Blanche, orders a large group of newbie Virgo members to come down to the basement floors with her for unexplained reasons. Once they are there, they are divide into groups and given sheet music to practice for what ends up feeling like a creepy musical seance. Juno’s plan seems to work, and the musical spell results in the summoning of two unseen spiritual entities, which are actually Stella and Arpegius of the Crescendolls. The spells seems meant to ensnare the spirits, but the rest of the late band, Octave and Baryl appear in time to stop it.

Baryl briefly possesses Ivan long enough to stop the ritual, which results in it backfiring - the emotional aspects that were binding the Virgo newbies to the ghosts are accidentally torn out, leaving them with parts of their souls missing. Juno briefly interrogates Ivan about his experience and then locks everyone in the basement until their souls eventually reunite with their bodies, and explains nothing to them.

NOVEMBER 2054: Lesedi and Blanche work together long enough to chase down the Crescendolls. This results in a lengthy battle in the spirit realm that results in the capture of Stella and Octave due to the more limited strength of their spiritual bonds. The other two members escape while Stella is imprisoned in Virgo and Octave is imprisoned in Pride. During the final parts of the conflict, the brainwashed musicians are affected by the empathic resonations of their patron spirits, resulting in amnesia and pain in the case of Stella and Octave, and protective urges in those connected to Baryl and Arpegius.

NOVEMBER 2054: Two mysterious benefactors begin appearing to members of Virgo and Pride, wearing identity concealing helmets and promising that they can help return musicians to their former selves if they agree to perform musical duets with them. Characters begin regaining canon abilities for the first time, and the two rebels responsible for it eventually become known as Silver and Gold based on the color of their masks.

NOVEMBER 2054: The Vista City Music Fest occurs, just in time to introduce several new bands and bandmates who have been brainwashed and transformed in a similar manner to the first group. Musicians continue to regain memories of their real lives with little idea of what context they come from.

DECEMBER 2054: A veteran member of Virgo Entertainment named Naomi Rivers invites all the new members of Virgo and Pride to a solstice party at her ocean side mansion. Days before the event, she recruits the help of several Virgo members to prepare for the occasion. Another veteran Virgo members called Anansi shows up and publicly argue about Naomi’s intent in throwing the party, which ends in Naomi telling Anansi to leave. Naomi and Anansi both candidly admit to being lovers when questioned about it, and Anansi warns Luce to be wary of Virgo’s political games. She asks that Luce do what she can to protect Naomi, but is cagey about the specifics of the threat.

DECEMBER 2054: The night of Naomi’s party, Silver and Gold hijack the shuttles ferrying small groups of late-arrivals from Virgo and Pride, landing them in a remote warehouse and insisting that the musicians remain there for the rest of the night in order to protect them from what is happening at the party. While Gold appears cheerful and hospitable during the evening, offering the kidnapped musicians a movie projector to entertain themselves with and snacks, Silver comes across as moody and reclusive. After midnight, the two of them leave the musicians to be picked up by their respective labels, seemingly aware of the disaster that has occurred at Naomi’s mansion.

DECEMBER 2054: The members of Virgo that were present for Naomi’s rehearsal performance during party preparations are put under a spell upon hearing the song sung again - it is a powerful enchantment that drives them to try to poison or otherwise murder as many Pride members as possibly by covert means during the party. After several major injuries have happened, Lesedi realizes what has been done and returns to the party in a fury, killing Naomi and revealing her own supernatural powers in the process. She swears vengeance against Blanche and the rest of Virgo before teleporting everyone in Pride back to the labs within Pride HQ, reluctantly reviving the near dead with magic at ostensibly great cost to herself. While staring at Naomi’s corpse, Blanche humours some questions about what happened, and implies that Naomi organized the party at his urging in order to take revenge upon Pride for a previous offense that also involved murder.

DECEMBER 2054: Both labels are given the rest of the holiday season off to recover. Towards the end of the month, the musicians start having weird dreams about people from their homeworld and other aliens that they struggle to remember upon waking.

JANUARY 2055: A blue alien named Shep flies his spacecraft through various dimensions, recruiting friends and strangers alike in an attempt to rescue Pride and Virgo’s brainwashed prisoners. After gathering a ship full of volunteers, which have been sharing dreams with the musicians back in Vista City, he returns to Tera and sends the rescuers into the city in order to gather information and remain hidden from the label’s sights. He directs them to Gold and Silver, who are revealed to be his allies and fellow rebels. They are both powerful musical wizards, capable of restoring parts of prisoners’ former selves with magic.

JANUARY 2055: During a charity concert, the rescuers have the opportunity to pose as fans and attempt to talk to the kidnapped musicians for the first time.

FEBRUARY 2055: The ghosts of Baryl and Arpegius return to the label HQs in an effort to rescue their kidnapped bandmates. In a series of hauntings, they attempt to recruit help from the musicians in order to free their ghost friends, knowing that without their spiritual assistance, the captives won’t be able to continue regaining their memories. Baryl organizes a team of Pride members and and Arpegius organizes a group of Virgos. The two ghosts reveal that they used to be Virgo musicians and were murdered by Lesedi Santiago. Both groups break into the laboratories of their respective HQs in the same night, and are successful in releasing the captive spirits. Unfortunately, almost the entirety of both groups are apprehended by Lesedi and Blanche, who lock them away in secret dungeons and subject them to mental and physical torture. Days later they are released, but the damage is clearly visible to friends and bandmates, and a deep sense of unease fills both labels.

FEBRUARY 2055: Spurred on by the events of the past month, Garnet and Greg Universe set out to find answers from their respective labels. Garnet gathers a team of Pride members who collectively break into Lesedi’s office, and discover the first mentions of the “conversion” of previously fired band members and other oddities. They escape unseen. Greg uses his increasingly potent music magic to break into the basement levels of Virgo HQ alone, and finds similar information, as well as documentation suggesting the imminent “conversion” of several of his friends. Before he can do anything with this information he is apprehended by Blanche and forced into an agreement where he will use his magic at Blanche’s behest in exchange for his son’s life.

FEBRUARY 2055: Determining that the current batch of rescuers are trustworthy, Shep, Gold, and Silver gather the rescuers together in order to give them a proper briefing of the situation. Lesedi and Blanche are revealed to be members of a powerful, space-time manipulating species called nebular. It is explained that they are using the musicians to gather magical and spiritual energy in order to complete some kind of magical ritual, probably with exceptionally poor intent. They are told that whatever ritual they are performing will likely come to a head in the near future, as they are waiting for some kind of important alignment of forces that will provide them with a window of opportunity. Silver recruits assistance for help putting together enough medical equipment to perform brain surgery on rescued musicians in order to remove the inserted chips that allow their labels to track their locations. Once it is completed, the rescuers will be able to try liberating captives before it’s too late.

MARCH 2055: A gameshow called Fairy Trial recruits various musicians from Pride and Virgo to participate in their anniversary episode. Seeing this as an opportunity to get the musicians all in one place, Gold gathers the rescuers and enchants them with magic so that they will win their auditions to participate in the gameshow. Once filming has started, Gold gives each rescuer a small quantity of a iridescent white powder that they are instructed to drug the musician’s food and drink with over the filming days, and claims that it will help combat the label’s mind control. During the post filming supper, Gold completes a magic spell in an unseen location nearby, but only Agent J notices, thanks to his ability to hear spiritual tunes.

MARCH 2055: Meanwhile, two bands of rescuers coordinate in order to defeat and capture two robotic label band managers. One team targets a manager from Pride, and the other targets a manager from Virgo. Both parties return to Silver’s base with a KO’d robot, and they start attempting to hack through the firewalls protection the robots’ internal data.

APRIL 2055: Continuing to observe the effects of the spell done during Fairy Trials, Agent J comes to the conclusion that there is now a third source feeding off of the energy of the musicians that were successfully dosed, along with Lesedi and Blanche. He questions Gold about this, who is reluctant to answer, and then panics when pressed on the subject. Gold panics and attempts to knock J out, and was intending on erasing J’s memories of the event if not for Silver’s arrival and interference. Agent J realises that Gold is the new source drawing energy from the musicians, and that that had been the purpose of the powder given out during Fairy Trials. Gold behaves erratically before eventually fleeing. Silver attempts to explain Gold’s motives to J, only having just understood what Gold had done as well. J agrees to keep the information quiet for the time being.

APRIL 2055: With the chip removal equipment successfully gathered, Virgo musician Sans decides to use his teleportation ability to bring as many fellow musicians to the rescuers as possible. He is successful in liberating six other musicians before eventually being caught by Blanche. Despite the robot soldiers sent after the rescuers to bring back the stolen musicians, the Sailor Scouts are able to fight them off and bring the liberated musicians to safety. Sans is sent to the Virgo laboratories and tortured.

APRIL 2055: Not long after this Shingo and Eiji rescue Nia and Ankh from Virgo, at the cost of Shingo himself being captured and brainwashed into taking Ankh’s place.

APRIL 2055: The ghosts of the Crescendolls return, bearing gifts. In thanks for the musicians’ aid in retrieving Stella and Octave, they grant all rescuers and captives various spiritual gifts of protection and healing. They also answer some questions, confirming that “fired” musicians are being locked away somewhere and used as a power source. The ghosts promise the musicians that they will be here to help them in the weeks to come, and that they are trying to set them free.

APRIL 2055: A group of rescuers and Greg Universe break into Virgo’s labs with the aid of Connie’s teleporting lion, in an attempt to rescue Sans. They find him bound and mentally and physically broken, in punishment for betraying Virgo. Through various pieces of evidence it becomes clear that Virgo has been set far behind Pride due to this sudden loss of musician power sources, and the rescuers proceed to make it worse by retrieving Sans and stealing five energy crystals from the labs. Juno attempts to stop them, but most of them teleport away while Greg stays behind. After being rescued, Sans confirms that the energy crystals are actually the souls of “fired” musicians that have been converted into power sources.

APRIL 2055: Greg Universe and Meril are punished for Greg’s participation in Sans’s rescue by having parts of their souls torn out by Blanche. Greg loses all his memories of having feelings of love, and Meril’s sense of duty becomes enslaved by Blanche’s will. They proceed to start acting like anime villains.

APRIL 2055: Jamie Hemeros and Terrance Ward are summoned to Lesedi’s lair, where she tells them that she has noticed their superlative skill with music magic and that they are expected to use their abilities to serve her directly. She assigns their training to members of the band Predator.

MAY 2055: While amping up for the World Tour, both Pride and Virgo release a whole bunch of new singles from all of their bands. Something about listening to these songs gradually warps the minds of those listening to become increasingly obsessed with the bands in question, and causes those that have escaped from their label to feel an increasingly powerful desire to return to their captors. Predator’s single in particular seems to sap energy from those that listen to it.

MAY 2055: Silver contacts Agent J to tell him that Gold hasn’t returned since their previous fight, making it sound as if Gold is intentionally hiding from them. They express concern that Gold is planning a suicidal attack against the labels.

MAY 2055: On May 5th at 5:55PM the first festival of the World Tour begins, and it quickly becomes obvious that the opening performances are also the start of the ritual Gold and Silver predicted would soon be occurring. Unfortunately for Virgo, Lesedi Santiago managed to capture and brainwash Lapis Lazuli prior to the beginning of the festival, and commanded her to attack rescuers and Virgo musicians as soon as the concert started, disrupting and effectively hamstringing Blanche’s side of the ritual. No deaths result from these attacks, but Virgo’s performances are thrown into chaos. Surrounding fans and civilians seem to be brainwashed into ignoring the destruction that goes on around them.

MAY 2055: Gold returns long enough to counter Lapis’s attack against the rescuers’ medical warehouse with overwhelming force.