phantasmalrift | DUNGEON LOG

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!dungeon

DUNGEON LOG - TELOVIA MINES

The day dawns bright and early - the same as most every expedition. The only difference is that you'll need to take the teleportation pad to Lodestone as a starting point - the gliders and drones are already there. There's clouds on the horizon, though, so if you're going to take a glider and go, you'd better get going.

There's some new additions, though, to the usual group of androids seeing you off. Tau is checking over the drones ready to carry those who can't or won't use the gliders, and Muon is practicing opening and collapsing the wings of a glider with bright yellow sails. She grins at anyone who approaches, shooting them a thumbs up.

"Don't worry about getting lost or falling behind! As long as Tau's here, they'll keep us all together."

And with that bit of bright cheer, it's off towards the mountains you go...

----

From the air, the remains of the mining town are almost impossible to tell from any other part of the forest. The trees - especially the old ones - are much thinner, and that's really the only sign of what's below.

But Muon's bright yellow glider, leading the way, dips down into the treeline before landing in an open space, and anyone who isn't paying enough attention to follow will feel their glider being herded in the same direction by Tau's power - control not outright taken, but more of a nudge, like, hey buddy it's this way. The group lands just beyond the border of the Fissure - a tiny stable spot in whatever's left of this world.

And a good thing, too, because landing in the Fissure itself could prove quite difficult...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ah, you had to leave an infant behind? I can certainly understand your worry...

Well, no, not exactly-- It's... complicated. Of course I imagine that's just par for the course when time travel is involved...

... I would be far more distressed if I'd left an infant behind.

Time travel...? And I thought time discrepancies between similar worlds made things complicated.

It's a mess. Even as happy as I am to have met these versions of my daughter, my nephew, and their friends...

[... Still, he smiles fondly.]

Morgan's such a resilient young woman... Still so lively and cheerful despite everything... I do wonder where she gets her energy though, she certainly didn't get it from me or her mother.

Maybe she gets it from coffee.

[Goro, not everyone has caffeine for blood.]

It sounds like she's someone to be proud of, though.

[Robin opens his mouth to protest, but then--]

... That would explain a lot, actually. [He chuckles.] She really is, though. She's resilient, intelligent, driven... She says she wants to be as great of a tactician as I am one day, but... well, I'm certain she'll surpass me one day and I couldn't be prouder.

It sounds like you have a close relationship, then. You're lucky.

We're quite close, yes. Though, that can be said for a lot of the children who'd traveled back in time like Morgan with their parents. [Lucina in particular comes to mind. Absently, a gloved hand comes up to rub at his neck.] A number of them are making efforts to... ah, make up for lost time.

[And Then There's Gerome, but that's a load of issues that aren't especially relevant at the moment.]

Do I...want to ask what you mean by 'lost time'?

... Lucina, their leader and Chrom's daughter, traveled through time in an attempt to prevent a catastrophe that's... close to befalling the world. I... imagine you can draw your own conclusions there.

Ah...very easily. Although, it is a little disconcerting that multiple worlds have their own near apocalypse to contend with.

... It really is, isn't it? I wouldn't have expected it to be a problem in so many different worlds.

Mine, as well. Of course, I know the Akira from my timeline should be more than capable of handling it without me, provided he recovers from the ways my earlier disappearance made his situation worse, but...

[He sighs and takes a drink from one of the water bottles Robin set out.]

Knowing it could still be resolved even if you don't make it back isn't much comfort.

It really isn't. I more than trust Wren to be able to handle things in my absence, especially with Morgan and Marc's assistance, but...

Well, I have plenty of reason to be worried. The plan she and I had in place still has plenty of room to mess up. It shouldn't, but... It's bad enough that we had to deceive everyone, but... it wouldn't have worked otherwise...

Sometimes, to trick your enemies, you have to trick your allies. I've had to do something similar, my plan to get us through Sae-san's Palace wouldn't have worked if I'd discussed it with anyone.

Validar's men won't monitor the movements of a man who'd supposedly died in battle... I'm sure you can think of more than a few ways to make use of that.

[It is a clever plan, if he does say so himself.]

Quite a few. In fact, Akira did something similar, faking his death so the conspiracy opposing the Phantom Thieves wouldn't pay attention to him until he was ready to act.

[Something about the subject seems to make him acutely uncomfortable, though.]

... Ah.

[...]

Validar is the leader of a group known as the Grimleal. They seek to summon Grima, the Fell Dragon... they need to be stopped.

[... Or else Lucina's efforts will be for nothing. Their efforts will be for nothing.]

That is quite the ominous sounding name. So, there's a person actually intending to destroy your world?

Yes. I'm not completely sure why they're doing it, but...

...Some people just want to watch the world burn. If you've been hurt badly enough, sometimes all you can think of is hurting something back. Of course...it's just conjecture. He could simply be a psychopath.

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I want to know which it is. I've had him literally in my head too much for me to even consider wanting to try to get into his in this sort of way.

[... That sure. Explains Robin's lone SHITlist entry, doesn't it.]

You're probably better off. I've seen worlds that reflect the mental state of the sort of person who's just willing to trample on others for their own self-gain, and it's not pleasant. I can only imagine how much more disturbing it would be to have that level of insight into someone who actively wants to destroy the world just for the sake of it.

... Worlds that reflect people's mental states?

There's an alternate dimension built on the world of cognition. If someone's perception of the world is particularly distorted, it forms an area called a Palace, where everything appears the way they think of it. For example, someone who sees her profession as a rigged game of chance might have a Palace where her workplace has transformed into a place for gambling.

It has no tangible effect on the real world, but the symbolism is typically direct enough to gain a large amount of insight just from looking around.

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