DUNGEON LOG - TELOVIA MINES

[phantasmods]

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...

Comments

[bloodyashes]

Sometimes I think that might be the only thing you don't know how to do.

[SHithead joking, yeah, let's cover the extreme discomfort about mines with that.]

[fifthreplacement]

[In response to that, because it's Sync, he idly throws some wind fonons at Asch to mark him. He may or may not have deliberately aimed at the red-head's face]

The only thing I don't know how to do is to make you shut up when I want you to and aren't allowed to beat you into the ground to do so.

[bloodyashes]

[The Seventh Fonon mark he get in return seems to be aimed to bounce off the side of his head. (Of course it's the Seventh, with Asch.)]

It's not like you exactly shut up, either.

Find anything interesting?

[fifthreplacement]

[He expected it, and gets an arm in the way of it. He'd have dodged it altogether, but eh. Right now it doesn't really matter]

Why would I? It's more fun not to.

[He shakes his head at the question, standing from the crouch he was in and having to quickly put a hand to the wall before he falls over] Nothing I can see. Just another dumb magic thing that makes no sense.

[bloodyashes]

Can't expect out-of-control magic to make as much sense as what we're used to, I guess.

[This is a joke because people can't make sense of fonons half the time.]

[fifthreplacement]

Magic doesn't make sense, whether it's in control or not. I don't know how anyone manages to use it for anything except irritating people.

[Asch's joke falls a little flat, since Sync doesn't usually explain fonons to people who don't get it]

[bloodyashes]

[I mean it's also a joke on the meta level. So it's fine.]

Pretty sure they same the same thing about us. Or else they just think fonons are magic anyway.

[Anything you don't understand is magic and sometimes the things you do understand are magic.]

[fifthreplacement]

I've already talked with someone about that, and I've figured out something of a way to make idiots understand it's not magic. Magic uses energy to make the unnatural happen. Fonons are a natural part of Auldrant, and what we use them for is simply a refined version of what they could already do if gathered together in large enough quantity.

[He's had a couple of moments of explaining this to people, but this at least, while very much dumbed down, tends to make people understand the whole "fonons aren't magic" thing]

[bloodyashes]

...Huh. That's a good way of explaining it. I just tell people it's particle physics and they shut up about it being magic, mostly.

[Nailed it.]

[fifthreplacement]

[Sync rolls his eyes]

Particle physics may as well be magic to most. Why would you use particle physics to explain anything to anyone, it's complicated enough that most people wouldn't get it. Even I barely get it.

[There are fonons, you can do stuff with them. That's good enough for him]

[bloodyashes]

...Because that's what it is?

[Faintly confused.]

And it's more that I use that to point out that it's not magic.

[fifthreplacement]

And it actually works?

[Mildly curious if it does. He still stands by the idea that if people don't get it, it may as well be magic]

[bloodyashes]

Works well enough. I think mostly because none of them do understand particle physics.

[fifthreplacement]

I wouldn't be surprised if they still think of it as magic because they don't understand it. At least it makes them shut up about it, I guess.

[He'll stick with something at least mildly understandable]