[Truth and Inference] I Played Libero’s “Visitor from Beyond” Event so You Didn’t Have to

As the title says, I played the Chinese Anniversary event, Libero’s “Visitor from Beyond” story because unfortunately, it was mired by the ongoing AI boycott and backlash from the community. I also know some are refusing to log into the game so being too much of a lore enthusiast, I still hopped onto the game to finish the event. In short, in my personal opinion, it was an interesting one. I actually found it a bit more engaging than the Global anniversary event from last year, “Pact” in the Secret Tunnel, which was still well done but could be a bit of too much of a read for some.

I felt a little more invested in this story and you’ll understand why in a moment but first, I’ll summarize the event story before providing a bit of my thoughts. (Note: There are some details I skipped for clarity and brevity.)

_{The first trailer for the event that teased the story to follow.}

Prologue: Into the Heights

After last year’s event where Mr. Inference found himself in the middle of investigating an astrological murder case, he seeks to find out more about the noblewoman named the “Lady of Dawn.” She was an a self-proclaimed actress but that was an act. Wanting to find answers, he visits the Golden Rose Theatre where he finds out from Ronald that she has died. From there, Ronald asks Mr. Inference if he could visit Kroto who is now in Libero after leaving the theatre. She is performing as “Mystic Nimbus” in the Heroic Heart Flight Competition being held there. Mr. Inference agrees to go.

Some time later, as he packs to go in his and Lady Truth’s office, Jose busts the door open to announce that his cousin, Carlos, is getting married and he was asked to be the witness and plan the wedding. Coincidentally, Carlos is going to Libero, the town he first met his wife, Isabella, to pick up a gift for her. He ends up teaming up with Mr. Inference as their destinations are the same and off to Libero they go.

Chapter 1: The Vanished Guest

Mr. Inference arrives in Libero and is greeted by “Safety Line” (Goatman) who is like the security guard of Libero. After being introduced to the town by him, Mr. Inference waits for a Jose who wouldn’t come. Before he can look for him, Mr. Inference finds himself mediating an disagreement between Rotor Wing (Aeroplanist) and Prospero (Peddler) as the latter is trying to scam the former.

Despite nearly getting her sent to jail, Mr. Inference convinces Prospero to help him find Jose who was detained by police because he was trying to look for his missing cousin. Jose complains how the town isn’t right and how his cousin’s death just seems to be swept under the rug. The police refused to take the case saying their manpower was being used for the competition, the newspaper refused to run Jose’s missing poster citing no space available, and when he went back to the station to argue, he was detained. They can’t even search the waters due to a sea and travel ban in place locking them within the confines of Libero.

It is clear that Jose is deliberately being turned away to look into Carlos’ disappearance. Evidentially, Count Abbate, who runs the competition in Libero and is from the prominent noble Abbate Family, is the one who may have a hand in all this…

Regardless, the two gentlemen resolve to find Kroto who may have some answers. However, before they end up leaving, Mr. Inference bumps into a cold and unfriendly youth who ends up meeting up with Rotor Wing. Interesting.

The two men end up at the beach in search of Kroto to no avail until a young man called “Unidentified Phenomena” (Acrobat) who offers to bring a message to Kroto as he is in charge of preparations for her performance. He also mentions an “extraterrestrial” lurking the streets at night and how he is highly interested in this. And what catches Mr. Inference’s attention is the fact that this new friendly and warm friend looks like the youth he bumped into earlier.

While Kroto couldn’t meet them right then and there, she leaves them a message on a bottle of limoncello to meet her that night back on the beach. When she arrives, they inform her of Carlos’ disappearance in which she mentions that she saw a strange incident that may have involved this “extraterrestrial” who she claims killed someone.

We learn that it was indeed Carlos who was killed by falling off a cliff by the pocket watch found by Kroto. Inside it was a picture of Isabella. The men realize this disappearance case runs deeper and warns Kroto to use discretion and act like she never met them there in order to ensure her protection. The men set out to investigate properly the following day.

Chapter 2: Secret Buried by Time

With the help of Unidentified Phenomena, Mr. Inference and Jose are able to go up to the a workshop on the cliffs where they meet Weather Watcher (take 3 guesses on who that is). She (Meteorologist) is an acquaintance of Unidentified Phenomena and reveals to us that he is actually Lumien Abbate, the Count’s nephew and heir to the Abbate Family. Although, Lumien prefers to be called “Lord Investigator of the Science Foundation.”

Anyways, the conversation turns to Weather Watcher accusing Unidentified Phenomena of sneaking into her records room and reveals a set of two footprints. However, while he admits to coming up to use her telescope at times with his friends from the foundation, Unidentified Phenomena is adamant about never stepping foot in her records room.

Eventually, the two investigators leave an irate Weather Watcher and say their goodbyes to the heir of the Abbate Family, before making their way back to town as Mr. Inference believes Prospero will be able to help figure out who the footprints belong to.

She is able to identify one of the footprints which points to the Abbate heir. This leads the men to the best suspect, Black Vulture, the other identity of Unidentified Phenomena.

To make a long story short, he refuses to tell them much and before they can get anything out of him, the guards come to kick them out.

However, they do learn from Rotor Wing that he is pretty buddy buddy with Black Vulture who he says is actually a really kind-hearted guy who graciously helps out the pilots with any problem they have (Black Vulture works in a workshop as an engineer of sorts). Instead, Rotor Wing bitterly points out how it is the Count, Black Vulture’s uncle, who is the cruel-hearted one and says that the competition he runs is in actuality for stealing patents from competitors.

What’s more, is that the competition is announced to go from a 2 day event to a 3 day event by our dear judge, Dandelion (Entomologist). In order to get closer to the Count, the two men concoct a plan to enter the competition, win, and secure the medal needed to get into the Count’s banquet which is an exclusive invite-only event. Winners, of course, get automatic entry.

They need an expert, however, and team up with Rotor Wing. While they don’t succeed in the group stage, Rotor Wing manages to get a medal in the single stage and gives it to the gentlemen because of all that they did for him. They’re now one step closer to the truth.

Chapter 3: When Madness Becomes a Curse

Mr. Inference and Jose encounter Weather Watcher who informs them she hasn’t seen Unidentified Phenomena for a few days now and is worried. She is concerned that he is being confined by the Count and reveals her reasons for this. It turns out that the real head of the Abbate Family was Prion Abbate, Lumien’s father who went mad when the lad was 9 years old. Prion set fire to his workshop which spread and killed several servants and also his wife.

Then, he would jump off a cliff with Lumien, ending his life this way though Lumien somehow survives. Alas, Lumien is dubbed, “the next Mad Count” due to not only the actions of his father but of previous members of the Abbate family who seemed to be inflicted with some sort of madness for the past 100 years.

With this new information, the men go on ahead back to Black Vulture’s workshop and after distracting some guards with the help of meteorological phenomena (Weather Watcher has their backs) and knocking out the rest, Mr. Inference is able to break in. As for Jose, he went on to the Count’s banquet to find out the details on him.

While Black Vulture is still unwilling to talk and initially acts coldly towards Mr. Inference, he has to give up his secrets after the latter deduces that the owner of the second set of footprints found back at Weather Watcher’s place was being held secretly here, at the workshop.

It turns out that Black Vulture was hiding a child, Cicada (Cheerleader) who was part of a group of kids that were abducted by the Count to be trafficked away somewhere with the help of Carlos.

(Yes, you read that right.)

The sea ban was in order to stop Carlos’ body from being found while the travel ban was to locate the missing Cicada. This is perhaps also why the competition was extended by a day. Mr. Inference and Black Vulture then rush over to the Count’s banquet in order to confront him and check up on Jose.

However, when they arrive, the Count is dead.

_{Dare I say a fitting end for a child trafficker. I sometimes do forget how dark IDV can get at times.}

After some investigating, it appears he died from cyanide poisoning coupled with some trauma to the back of his head which caused significant blood loss. The most clear suspects seem to be “Mystic Nimbus” who confesses she accidentally dropped her hangover remedy into the Count’s drink and Rotor Wing who somehow did find his way into the banquet by using a medal from last year’s competition (which isn’t allowed apparently).

After some careful deduction on Mr. Inference’s part, he deduces that there were two perpetrators to the crime of the Count’s murder. The first one was Rotor Wing who came to confront the Count on behalf of his friend, Greene who died after winning last year’s competition. The Count had stolen his patent and had it in a safe. The noble made the mistake of bragging about it which infuriated Rotor Wing who acted on his anger by shoving the Count into the wall repeatedly which helped cause the blood loss. Afterwards, Rotor Wing slipped away on a makeshift glider, only coming back to the banquet to see what happened after the Count died.

The other culprit was Lumien Abbate who used cyanide poison on the Count’s trusty handkerchief causing the man to unknowingly inhale it in whenever he used it (which was a lot as he was a very germ-conscious person). Only Lumien would know of the Count’s stickler hygiene habits and thus his culpability was sealed.

It was also revealed in this conversation that Prion Abbate wasn’t the one who started the fire but instead, did his best to save his son from it, resulting in the man’s untimely death.

_{You can see Prion’s grave in the bottom left corner of this poster.}

Yet, the night of revelations isn’t over when it soon comes to the attention of those gathered at the banquet that the children who had been abducted were about to be trafficked away at Libero’s docks. They were already being flown away in a hot air balloon but Black Vulture and Rotor Wing leapt right into action. They manage to successfully save the children though they still had to be arrested for the murder of the Count.

_{I honestly felt so bad for poor Wendy here unknowingly helping the Count.}

Epilogue: Night Tide

Ultimately, it’s cased closed. Black Vulture and Rotor Wing’s trial is deadlocked due to evidence over the causes of death being a bit vague one what exactly killed the Count. Cicada is doing fine and has been adopted out to a family though she hints at a secret she kept from Mr. Inference only dissuaded in telling him because of Prospero. “Mystic Nimbus” is travelling with a third-rate troupe as her reputation of being the harbinger of bad luck from the Golden Rose Theatre to Libero is catching up with her and no one wants to bring her own. Though, she remains in high spirits even mentioning that more people want to see her then ever, ironically enough.

There are still mysterious to be had but for now, the case of Libero’s “Visitor from Beyond” is closed.

Thoughts

_{The trailer showing the end of the events of the last chapter.}

Again, not a bad story. It is very unfortunate that some of the images in this story does seem to indeed be made with AI. That definitely detracts terribly from the story. Putting the use of AI aside, I would say the story itself may feel a bit wearisome until they drop the bomb on you that children are being trafficked. For what purpose? They don’t say but it’s messed up nevertheless.

I also found it incredibly interesting that since this was the first time we had a character with an identity switch be in an event with both their survivor and hunter identities participating actively in the story. They way it was described was by Mr. Inference deducing Mike had Disassociative Identity Disorder. Now, as I understand it, the representation of this disorder in IDV has been a subject of debate (namely thinking of Ripper here) and how it is poorly represented. I’m not about to go into that can of worms but I did want to say that Mike didn’t seem to be aware of leading two separate lives.

I mean, Mr. Inference himself notes that while he met the friendly and cheerful, Unidentified Phenomena, when he went on to met Black Vulture, the man didn’t recognize him and remained cold and taciturn. I do wonder how that works but I think you’re not supposed to think too deeply about it.

Anyways, on a lighter note, I quite enjoyed Jose and Prospero aka Valentina in this. That lady had no shame in trying to scam Charles, getting in trouble for it (almost going to prison) only to turn around and try scamming those again. She also has a mini-game you can play but again, it’s probably a scam because I was not able to win it ONCE.

On the other hand, Jose was quite a joy. Mainly because I never see him much and I feel like I still don’t have a full grasp on his personality outside of how awful some people view him due to his actions and demeanor towards others in his manor game. For those who don’t know or forgot, he is in Game 5 with Cowboy, Painter, Perfumer, and Enchantress who he seems to spurn the most. Still, in this Truth and Inference event at least, while he doesn’t always appear the brightest, his heart is in the right place and he does his work thoroughly. He is a great partner to Mr. Inference.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad anniversary event but due to the AI, it just suffered a lot both in playability and artwork which is a shame really. Granted, this is only my second anniversary event so I still have to build up my framework when it comes to comparing and contrasting it from other anniversary events.

I just do hope that the Global anniversary event which will release sometime in July, I believe, will be much better in terms of just not using AI honestly. That’s really my only bar to cross in making it the better anniversary event. Let’s just hope that it is an easy bar to cross.