Dulcinea de Montréal Goes To Clavia (and Marefore Too)!

[Aeromage]

The Harvest-Bearers manifest multiple, smaller Graminoids from within them and send them out as a flailing army, pummeling the Sorrows with multiple attacks from different angles! The abstract takes Moderate damage from the assault!

The Thornbinding Maelstom-Hawthorns erupt into a spaghetti-tangle of thrashing whiplike branches that stretch and extend horrifyingly beyond their apparent limits, raining blows and binding their foe! The Sorrows weathers the assault for Moderate damage, and is hit with a fortunate instance of Entombed: Encarcerated that additionally deals Physical-element damage every round!
The strange buff, it seems, vanished along with the Reactor.

The Tritons stab away with their tridents again, dealing Moderate damage!
The Hippocampus Stampede begins anew, coming in on the heels of the cavalcade of attacks before and absolutely trampling the thing for Heavy damage!

Abstracts are extremely tough entities, but Dulcinea thinks it might be looking distinctly the worse for wear.

Ryuu tosses a quickly-manifested glass of alcohol at the Sorrows! It begins wobbling a bit more on its axis, and the electro-swing begins to distort in strange and ear-hurting ways.

Dulcinea's technomagical arrays manifest and spew out a dazzling cluster of shining, sparkling, sparkle-trailing missiles that lock on to the chaotic menace and pummel it with force! It takes Moderate damage from the initial barrage!

Archer throws a paper talisman at the thing, which bursts into a concussive blast of grey energy, dealing Moderate damage!

The Bunyip-squad attempts to sleep-curse the Abstract in turn! None except Bunyip 1 succeed, however.

The Sorrows fails to wake up from its curse-induced nap!


The round ticks.

The Sparklemissiles key off the faster side of battle, and explode in a spectacular, sparkletacular vortex-storm that rips through the spinning monstrosity! Even resisted, the result deals it enough damage to push it over the edge!
With a final, groaning chord, the Sorrows collapses in on itself, spraying purple sand, atomic seawater, and miniature vases around the room as the central point of chaos-gravity dissipates.

Dulcinea's side of battle gets:
3* the XP for a Level 38 Entity

Strange Souvenir-Stand Stocked With Plush Versions of Notable Marefore Figures Complete With Whimsical Biography-Tags- (Item, Property, Water & Atomic & Time & Glory, 28,000,000 Gold)



Silence falls in the absence of abstract-shanty nonsense, leaving the room full of horse-fish, fish-men, plant-men, plant-things and the assorted other members of Team Dulcinea.

"I take it that was an example of an Abstract," the Professor states, cleaning his glasses. "I can honestly say that I didn't much care for the demonstration."


The rest of the room is in rather a state of disarray, with shelves broken and debris scattered around in the wake of both the fight and the explosive collapse of the Abstract. Two doors other than the one the group entered from are present, one to the South and one to the East.

[The Nottest of Daves]

The professor sees to topping off everyone's lost health with a liberal application of coffee shots all around, while Dulcinea summons a new round of Water Elementals to scout the exit EAST.

[Aeromage]

Water Elementals are sent off to explore while the Professor sets to applying yet more coffee to people. Everyone seems to be at more-or-less full health, give or take a few bumps.

From the helpful lectures given, and Dulcinea's basic knowledge of dungeons, she's pretty sure that Abstract would probably be classed as one of the nastiest things in it. As most dungeons generally tend to follow a rough level-band format, and given her earlier scans of enemies, she feels fairly confident that this place would probably fall into a range of Level 20-39.

She's also fairly sure that if she leaves the room without attempting to properly assert control over some of these summoned plant-things, they're likely to dissipate back into mana.

Splashing is heard! The Elementals have apparently joined battle against two 'weird elementals' and a 'shiny man-thing'. They report one of the enemy elementals is nearly dead.

[The Nottest of Daves]

Dulcinea will take the time to exert proper control over the plant-summons while she sends the elementals, horse-fish, and fish-men, and bunyips off to clear out the probably-Celirium-elementals-and-fake-Gold-Dust-monster. Hopefully the Nearby Baseball lurks sufficiently close to prevent the resurrection-effect. If it takes another round, the professor will be sent to oversee.

She also issues an information request of the plants, after she stabilizes her control over them, looking particularly for any status effect infliction or removal, or large AoE damage effects.

[Aeromage]

Dulcinea sends her troops off and exerts herself to take control of the summons!
She then takes a closer look at the things.

The Graminoid Harvest-Bearers (Plant, Level 35) are large, somewhat sleepy-looking grassy-backed, vine-limbed plant-humanoids with a notable hole in their fronts. They are notably able to survive having pretty much everything cut off, being able to regrow, albeit slowly in most circumstances, from just a head, which seems to be a feature shared by all Graminoids.
This variety in particular is able to absorb other plants (or in mechanical terms, as Dulcinea notes, take them on as passengers) and gain a chunk of their stats and HP in doing so, along with being able to use abilities and constant effects held by them as if the original owners were doing so (where applicable). Without passengers, they have the ability to manifest temporary swarms of lesser Graminoids for rush-based attacks, and a few lashing and binding attacks.

The Graminoid Seed-Rain Exemplars (Plant, Level 39) are smaller examples, but are significantly more colourful. Their grassy leaves come in a bizarre variety of hues, with a number of strange flowers, ferns and other plantlife mixed in.
These ones are apparently able to mimic having eaten Seed Rain Fruits to a lesser, more-generic extent. As summons, this is generalised even further by letting them choose a stat to greatly boost on entry, along with a large HP and MP buff. They also have access to single- and multi-target attacks that can be any combination of Base Elements plus a few more (which Dulcinea suspects might match up to some of the Moons' elements) with the exceptions of Fire and Technology. These attacks can also inflict the basic Moderate status effects of the corresponding elements. They're able to manifest healing-fruits (which can easily remove minor status effects, and have a chance of curing Moderates) and some general buff/debuff effects, too.
Each of the five has focused on a different stat.

The Thornbinding Maelstrom-Hawthorns (Plant, Level 39) are stationary entities, being trees. They're capable of unspooling their branches into horrible whiplike arrays of lashing thorns, however, and specialise in repeating attacks that inflict various flavours of Entombed and Bleeding with the option of dealing Wood damage instead of the usual. They can set up damage-over-time effects that hit a large number of targets every round, too. They can also set up binding-attacks that are capable of preventing things below their level from acting, with the success of such increasing depending on how much lower-level the opponent is.


Thanks to her knowledge as a Summoner, she's pretty sure juggling this many summons of similar level is going to be a bit of a logistical problem and likely to cause some to fade out of existence without concerted effort. She also knows that a way to alleviate this would be to hand some off to unique allies that are capable of handling summons. Which in this case would likely be Ryuu.


A searing flash of green-white light shines through the cracks of the Door To Battle. It's taking rather longer than expected.

The Professor is dispatched to investigate and finish things off.

Another round passes.

Dulcinea and the Professor gain:

2* XP for a Level 30 Entity
1* XP for a Level 35 Entity


"It transpires that the shining individual was not, in fact, another Gold-Dust creature. It appeared to be some sort of knight in searingly-bright armour whose attacks dealt more damage to those who were irradiated or afflicted by maladies from itself or its companions. Rather an unpleasant opponent for its level, I would surmise."

The rather singed-looking platoon of fishy folk and fish-adjacent fellows file back in. A few look somewhat radioactive.


The Professor presents Dulcinea with:
Celirium-α Isotope Crystal- (Item, Material, Atomic, 5,000 Gold)

Irradiate Zone- (Spell, Geomancy, Atomic, 15 MP, 11,000 Gold) Target Zone that is owned by a source that is either below Level 20 that is lower Level than caster or is willing is converted into a Zone of Atomic

A New And Radiant Emerald Dawn Breaks: Proof of Holy Progress- (Spell, Other: Radiant Magic, Atomic, 50 MP, 2,000,000 Gold) Caster creates a Zone of Atomic and attaches an effect to it that allows caster and all Light-element Individuals present that have an item named 'Proof of Companionship' or 'Proof of the Holy Mission' equipped to instead count as being Atomic element and have all instances of Light damage dealt by them to instead become solely the element Atomic, with all Light-element individuals present in said zone that do not possess the aforementioned items instead gaining -200 to all stats as an effect that does not stack, This spell may be cast and equipped as a Holy Magic or Divine Magic spell

[The Nottest of Daves]

Dulcinea passes off control of the Water Elementals, Lesser Hippocampi, and the Tritons to Ryuutarou. She will also pass some Bunyips if she has to, but she will keep Bunyip #1 if she can.

Ryuu, new Troop Commander, dispatches the Water Elementals to door SOUTH. Dulcinea readies her New Leafy-Model Army for possible combat!

[Aeromage]

Summon-baton-passing goes ahead! She momentarily wonders about the issue of taking along all of the hanging plant-summons, but then realises the point is somewhat moot anyway- in order to have the Thornbinding Maelstrom-Hawthorns actually move anywhere, the Harvest-Bearers will need to absorb them, thus allowing them to use the Hawthorns' skills as if it were the trees themselves using them, or if needed unload them into potential future battlefields.

The Professor reports that the East room had another door in it leading further East.

The Water Elementals head to the South!

Immediately, there's more splashing. A confused splash-shout comes back of two lady(?) elemental(??) things.

The room shakes from a powerful magical blast, viridian light searing through the cracks in the door, shortly followed by another impact of [non]light that leaves geometric after-glitches lingering around it for a moment.

[The Nottest of Daves]

Dire Battle is entered!

START OF BATTLE
The Hippocampi overboost Professor Rubiaceae to MAXIMUM SPEED

START OF ROUND 1
The Caffeinating Aura provides everyone with Augmented: Haste!
The Citadel summons some more Water Elementals!

ROUND 1
The Professor tests a Toxin-element Coffee Shot on one of the lady? elementals??

Dulcinea brings forth the GAZE of the STAR OCCULUS to behold their stats!

The Graminoid Seed Rain Exemplars are directed to use their best non-resisted elemental abilities on the attack (ideally against any reported weaknesses of the scans).
The Graminoid Harvest-Bearers use the Binding Attacks of the Thornbinding Maelstrom-Hawthorns to attempt to capture the strange beings, unless scanning contraindicates this because of elemental shenanigans.
Tritons will bestabben, unless the enemies have very high Physical Resist/Immunity/Absorb
Hippocampi will use Bronze Hooves, unless the above conditional is met.

If they have somehow survived all that, the Water Elementals join in, unless the above conditional fails with regards to Water.

Ryuutarou will bestabben his cooking knives alongside Purifying Blade, unless the above conditional fails with regards to Light.

[Aeromage]

Team Citadel burst into the room!

The Water Elementals look pretty battered. Facing them are two figures made of arcane energy in female humanoid form, one a brilliant viridian, one a strange semi-glitching mass of [colour not found]. Both are wearing wedding dresses made of crystal and moonstone, holding a single rose and a crystalline blade.

The Hippocampi boost the Professor! The Professor IS SPEED!
He fires off a Toxin-element Coffee Shot on the glitching-elemental(?), reasoning that the green-glowing one might potentially have a resistance to the element.
The entity glitch-dodges the attack!

Dulcinea brings forth the might of the STAR OCULUS to bear on both opponents! It doesn't quite go off properly, however, splashing against the green-glowing one for Light damage, and the D[DESIGNATION NOT FOUND]DDdddddddddddd-itch-dodges, somehow.

She gets information on the one she hit, though!

It's an Atomic Elyoii of the Emperor-Moon (Spirit & Wizard's Shadow, Level 39).
It's a spirit directly tied to the Emperor-Moon's domains, and is capable of bringing to bear the elemental aspect it's related to in a few potent ways. Notably, it somehow counts as wielding an Artifact, along with a number of Atomic-flavoured Spell Aspects that can do such things as powerfully hit and stun opponents while inflicting Overload: Thermonuclear Meltdown, inflict Instant Death and Vanished through focused-nuclear-blastwave-power, mass-hit with an atomic explosion that can inflict Antimatter:Atomic Meltdown, hit with a pick-and-choose combination-attack of Earth/Air/Fire/Water/Atomic that can optionally multi-hit for reduced damage on each hit, lower its enemies' To-Hit with a blinding cloak of irradiant light, transfer large amounts of MP to its allies, and provide a buff to give a chance to reflect attacks back re-aspected as Atomic element. It doesn't actually spend MP when casting said spells due to a Constant Effect named 'Rose of Aeonaut', too. It can also choose to join its HP, MP and stats to an ally (which it looks like it's opted to do).
It Absorbs Atomic, and has a decent resistance to Null, Time, and, concerningly, Universe. It also has a lesser resistance to Crystals and Crystal(2).

[03:45] Caelzeph: Question: If the entities are revealed to be Level 39, will the Harvest-Bearers still attempt to use the binding attacks, as they wouldn't be effective against same-level enemies?
[03:46] Ordo Hereticus: no, they'll spit the trees out so they can use it instead
[03:46] Caelzeph: To clarify: The action-cancel only works for things under 39, given that's the level the trees are at
[03:47] Ordo Hereticus: ah
[03:47] Ordo Hereticus: then they'll just attack with the most suitable thing they can do
[03:47] Caelzeph: (You may have accidentally hit something actually rather powerful)
[03:48] Ordo Hereticus: Everything will focus fire as well
[03:48] Ordo Hereticus: i.e. keep attacking the same enemy until enemy goes down, then whoever's next attacks the other one

The Exemplars attack! The first deals Minor damage to the Atomic-one with a Fire-assault, the second Minor damage to the Atomic-one with an Electrical-attack, the third manages to completely fluff an attack using Air, which additionally [PARSING ERROR, NNNNNNO FURTHER INFORMATION], the fourth deals Minor Water damage to the Atomic one, and the fifth Moderate damage to the Atomic one. None of them manage to trigger any status effects.

The Harvest-Bearers call upon their passengers' power! Lashing thorn-whips erupt from their forms and focus on the Atomic-element enemy!
They deal Minor, Minor-with-repeating-Entombed: Overgrown-application, Heavy, Major-with-repeating-Bleeding-application, and No damage.

The Tritons stab away for No, Moderate and Heavy damage!

The Hippocampi stampede in! During the onrushing assault of bronze hooves, something critical is hit in the Atomic shape's form, several times over, and its light winks out.

...something is wrong. Their stats and, more importantly, HP were linked. The glitch-one should be dead because of that. It doesn't look dead, though. It looks absolutely fine.

The Water Elementals, Ryuu and Archer still have yet to act. Pausing here in case a different tack is desired.

[The Nottest of Daves]

The Water Elementals will use Drown to see if they can hit it with a Status effect!

Ryuutarou will hit it with Drink Your Sorrows Away!

Archer will do whatever he thinks he ought.

[Aeromage]

The Water Elementals attempt, and succeed, to inflict Drowning on the strange, glitchy foe!

Ryuu hits it with alcohol to no apparent effect!

Archer charges in and aims a powerful swing at the thing, bu[Undeclared Variaiaiaiaiabbbbbbbble]odges again.

The entity raises its [ROSE] and [errcode:#FE86FF]
[FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF]
Entity_DULCINEA(dam_value LIGHT)
Entity_PROFESSOR(dam_value LIGHT)
Entity_RYUUTAROU(dam_value LIGHT)
Entity_ARCHER(dam_value ERRCODE 3A-β UNABLE TO AFFECT)
[ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Archer interrupts whatever on earth that was by swinging his mace, wreathed in grey energy that shatters the air before it, glitch-lines crackling and sputtering out of existence before they could continue to affect anything else. The room stabilises.

The entity takes Heavy damage from the counter, apparently affecting it despite whatever weirdness is keeping it still in play.

[The Nottest of Daves]

START OF ROUND 2:

Stat Boost: SPD Boost for everybody!
The Citadel does not summon.

ROUND 2:
The professor attempts to Lecture this entity on its improprieties and horrible taste! It's a surprisingly Toxin-infused lecture!

Dulcinea activates the power of her Wishing Heart to summon and equip

Parallel Mageblast: Conjured Mana-Syphon Arcanomachina-Tendrils- (Spell, Technomancy, Metal & Technology, 160,000 MP, 16,000,000 Gold) +16,000 Magical Attack, +16,000 Ranged Attack, This action deals HP Drain and MP Drain, 15% inflicts Antimatter: Syphon

from her Inventory in a distant time and space!

2/8 Miracles Used


Dulcinea directs both flavors of Graminoids to focus on status-inflicting powers over damage-dealing (though ideally both at once).

Ryuutarou flings Drunkenness at it again!

The Tritons go stabby-stabby!
The Hippocampi Overrun!
The Bunyips try to make it Sleep!

[Aeromage]

Everyone is sped up!
The entity is hit with damage from Drowning! It doesn't seem to do much.

The Professor unleashes an acerbic verbal assault on the glitch-thing, telling him just what he thinks of its untoward manipulations of reality! It takes Moderate MIN damage! Looks like that certainly affected it.

Dulcinea wishes with all her heart! She also wishes by using her heart. With a flash and a shimmer, she finds herself in possession of the Mana-Syphon spell she desired!

The Graminoids prepare a status-laden assault! They're certainly doing damage, but as Dulcinea has guessed, ordinary damage alone doesn't seem to be cutting it. They do, however, manage to lay Dissolving, Manablasted, Awestruck, Mindblasted, Entombed: Overgrown and Wounded: Bleeding on the thing.

Archer steps in and delivers another ringing blow with his mace, dealing Minor damage, but it seems like it's actually hurting it, somehow, despite her allies' other damage-assaults failing to do anything.

Ryuu flings alcohol with gusto! This time it does seem to do something. The thing's form bobbles and wavers weirdly as it gets hit with Poison: Drunk.

The Tritons and Hippocampi attack at Ryuu's command! Under his guidance, they attack as one, tridents stabbing and hooves flashing, fish-men and fish-horses stampeding in perfect synch and mowing down their foe!

It doesn't kill the thing. It does, however, knock it off-balance, he thinks.
He also thinks that was an absolutely incredible charge he just led. Why, it'd probably be a textbook example!
Even better, he thinks he could pull it off again!

Ryuu gets:

Tally-ho!- (Active Ability, Commander) Possessor may use 'Tally-ho!' in conjunction with a 'Melee Attack', 'Magical Attack', 'Ranged Attack', 'Melee Overdrive', 'Overdrive' or 'Ranged Overdrive', so long as no other technique is used. Possessor may give one of its pets or summons an additional action to be taken immediately after this action that may only target a single entity targeted by possessor's action; all of possessor's pets and summons that have not yet acted this round may immediately take their action following this granted action, provided they target the same entity.

The Bunyips attempt to make the thing sleep! Most fail, being unable to recreate the feat Bunyip 1 pulled off. Bunyip 4, apparently not having much luck in the curse-department, manages to have its curse backfire and makes itself fall asleep. Bunyip 1 manages to get the effect off, however. Dulcinea thinks. It's a bit difficult to tell with the entity's general glitchiness and lack of face.

The thing twitches strangely and briefly flash-moves across the room before returning to its position and holding up the [ROSE]. Did it recover? It [DESCRIPTION NOT FOUND]

[INVALID TARGET]

[INVALID TARGET]

[INVALID TARGET]

[INVALID TARGET]

[INVALID INVALID INVALID INVALID INVALID INVALID INVALID]

Archer once again shatters the strange glitchfest going on before it can get too out of hand, dealing Minor damage to the thing and again somehow visibly affecting it with his counter despite it shrugging(?) off previous instances of damage.

Whatever just went on, Bunyip 2 and two of the Water Elementals have vanished, replaced by an unpleasant glitchy mess hovering in the air where they once were.


(100, 96, 93, 92, 49. Multiply-exploding roll! The ability may get changed, though)

[The Nottest of Daves]

START OF ROUND 3

If any allies lost Augmented Haste, it is reapplied! Bunyip 4 wakes up!
The Citadel does not summon.


ROUND 3

The Professor Lectures it a second time (keeping it Toxin element)!

Dulcinea gathers her mana, focusing it on both the Glitch-Elyioii and the glitched-out summons through the multi-target ability of 'All The Fishes You Will Meet', and casts her newly-summoned Mana Syphon to try to drain out the HP and MP of the enemy glitch-beings!

The Harvest-Bearers and Seed Rain Exemplars are directed to attempt to apply different status effects to the Glitchyioii if they can, or maximize damage if they cannot.

The remaining Bunyips set into Sleepy-curse-mode again!

Ryuutarou will Tally-Ho! Purifying Blade and Culinary Keenknives at hand, he leads the forward charge! Triton 1 is the beneficiary of his extra action, and leads the remainder of the Tritons and Hippocampi in a massive charge!

[Aeromage]

Haste is reapplied, and the unfortunate Bunyip wakes up!

The Professor lays into the glitch-thing once more, delaing Moderate MIN damage!

Dulcinea, fish-book raised high, blasts the room with a Mana Syphon! The glitch-effects where her summons were blow apart on contact with the spell, and the main glitch-entity takes Heavy MP damage, form sputtering crazily. Dulcinea regains her MP for the spell! She does not, however, gain any HP. It would appear the entity is somehow still operating without it.

The Exemplars and Harvest-Bearers continue their attacks! They manage to inflict Voidstruck, an instance of Entombed: Overgrown with Physical damage on it, and Wounded: Bleeding with Wood damage on it. Damage is dealt, but to no obvious effect.

Ryuu leads the charge! A great torrent of stabbings and stompings, trampling a[EL/EL/El/eL/EL/EL/ELLLLLLLLLLLLLLL]o apparent effect, despite the weight of the assault.

Archer steps in, throwing a talisman at the enemy and pinning the piece of paper to it mid-flight with the tip of his mace. Strange ripples wash out from the point of impact, dealing Moderate damage(?) to the thing and inflicting Awestruck: Sealed.

Bunyip 1 manages to re-sleep the entity!

It fails to wake up!

[The Nottest of Daves]

START OF ROUND 4

Stat Boost: SPD Boost gets handed out!
The Citadel does not summon.

ROUND 4

The professor lectures it a third time!

Dulcinea does not invoke the power of Multi-target-attack this time! She does however still attack the single Glitchyioii with the glorious power of Mana Syphon channeled through Book and Staff!

The rest of the squad hold off until we see the result of what Archer manages to pull off on his next turn!

[Aeromage]

SPEED is had!

The Professor continues his venomous tirade, dealing Moderate MIN damage to the entity! Dulcinea immediately follows up with another Heavy- MP damage attack, and Archer delivers a powerful swing with his mace.

Combined, the assault is enough to finally put the irritatingly glitchy foe down.


Team Dulcinea gets:

4* the Gold and XP for a Level 39 entity

Emperor's Blastwave- (Spell, War Magic, Atomic, 750 MP, 3,900,000 Gold) +3,900 Magic Attack, 100% inflicts Overload: Thermonuclear Meltdown, 1 hit against 6,250

[[CODEX]]_ROSE_AEONAUT_NULL_39- (Accessory, Tome, Crystal (2) & Null, 3,900,000 Gold) -3,900 Magical Attack, -3,900 MIN, -7,800 SPI, -78,000 MP as a non-stacking effect, Wielder loses three Spell Slots and may equip an additional 5 Null-element Spells, with said equipped items not taking slots, This item additionally possesses the subtype Crystal & Glitch


"It would seem that this dungeon contains Spirits after all," Archer states, hefting his mace. "I was beginning to think this was 'an unknown quantity containing quantities unknown', so to speak."

The room contains doors heading South and East.

[The Nottest of Daves]

Dulcinea will take the time to commune with the geomancy of this dungeon once more, in order to determine its base nature and the expected behavior of its spawns. She settles into a meditative posture, and then stiffens in surprise! Inspiration has arrived!

She activates her Wishing Heart and begins a short ritual:

Sense beyond Sense,
Sight beyond Sight,
Source of all Inspiration,
Grant me Knowledge,
Grant me Insight,
Grant me Understanding,
That I may Truly Know
This Territory that We Travel


Miracle Heart 3/8
Engine of Wishes 4/24

[Aeromage]

Dulcinea calls upon the power of her Miracle-Engine Heart, this time not for power or possession, but for knowledge.

Her Heart activates, and she is no longer there.

Dulcinea is sitting at her desk, tallying up the day's profits and expenditures. She's running low on the better-quality thread, and Mrs. Nerris' dress is due for collection in three days. Perhaps she-

A sickly green glow catches her attention. She pushes herself up, ledger still open, and peers around the corner, through her shop's floor, out through the windows. Between the mannequins, through gaps in the bazaar's cloth roof, she sees a glowing speck surrounded by rapidly-brightening emerald light.
A thrill of fear runs through her. This isn't right. A spirit attack? Here? She has to get to shelter. Perhaps the back room--

Dulcinea is running. She is running from the light, running to the door at the back, to her storeroom, to put as many walls and as much distance between herself and whatever it is out there as possible. She wrenches open the door, slams into the wall, scrabbling to take the right-hand turn to the storeroom-

Dulcinea doesn't make it. The tailor doesn't make it. She/he was incinerated before he/she ever made that final turn. The building was blown apart before that could ever happen. For an instant, there was only a dark imprint of soot and shadow on the wall, an encapsulated silhouette of a desperate man's last moments, hoping to flee the destruction, believing he could, wishing he was faster, capable of getting to safety.

The man has departed this world, and his soul went on to the Wheel of Reincarnation. But something remained. Time unspooled and rewound, and the memory stayed, embedded in the fabric of the place. Pooling Atomic Mana, caught into an eddy, happened to flow into the building as the rest of the town restored itself, flooding in through the reforming doors and unshattering windows, flowing through to the back room, a torrent that inevitably hit the wall with its restored silhouette.

Mana cannot spawn non-Spirit things in the physical world. Not normally. It can change things, can transform their shape and purpose... and can weaken the fabric of reality enough to punch holes in it, pockets and caverns that bulge through a space in-between to the Spirit World beyond. Here, things like that can happen. Here, dungeons can be made that link directly to the world of the physical. The tailor's shop is one such dungeon.

Dulcinea sees its form, sees how it was created. The embedded thematic resonance of the shop mingled with the flood of Atomic mana, creating the dungeon she knows. The tailor wished to flee, but at some level knew he could not escape. The dungeon is in the vague form of a ring, a great loop.

Time restored the town around it to its former self, and some of that Time filtered in, keeping the dungeon in its form, restoring damage dealt to it by the unstable, explosive form of Atomic mana it was saturated in. The dungeon will not expand.

The entity that caused the explosion that destroyed Marefore initially was Level 39. The dungeon cannot be a greater level that that. Its level range is 20 to 39.

Dulcinea sees the mana within the dungeon take form, becoming rooms and traps, items and entities. She sees the entities she has already encountered- Gold-Dust Shades, Celirium-α Elementals, Whirls-of-Rags, the Sorrows of the Seaside in Seven-Act Disharmony, the Atomic Elyoii of the Emperor-Moon.
She sees the glitching form of the entity she was unable to scan. It is an [[ELYOII]]39&NULL_AEONAUT (Spirit & Wizard's Shadow, Level 39).
She sees a knight in blindingly-radiant emerald armour, one that her summons and the Professor have already defeated. They are the Heralds of the Dawn Irradiant (Radiant, Level 35).
She sees entities she has yet to encounter.
Lesser Celirium-α Elementals (Elemental, Level 20), smaller and less-potent versions of the ones she fought.
Atomic Shades (Spirit & Umbral, Level 20), living silhouettes that peel themselves from the walls they were burned into with radioactive light.
Mannequin Atomgeists (Spirit & Golem, Level 28), floating, half-melted mannequins surrounded by hovering, radioactive debris.

All of them acting as spawns should, all of them confined to their respective chambers so long as they are not provoked.

She sees the tailor, fleeing still.
No, not the tailor. It couldn't be him.
She sees something in the form of the tailor, a three-dimensional shadow born from the constant wash of Atomic mana battering his burned-in silhouette on that wall, around which the dungeon flowed and formed.

She sees *The Tailor's Fleeing Echo (Spirit, Level 39 Boss), eternally living out the last moments of the ill-fated Simon Crendall.

It flees from room to room, desperately running from the echo of the disaster that claimed Marefore. And on its heels, nuclear annihilation follows, destroying rooms and obliterating the entities within.

The boss of this dungeon is not a standard one. It constantly runs around the ring its home and prison forms, paying little heed to anyone or anything in its path, for all it knows is that it must escape the disaster that chases it. It is fast, and hard to hit. Its skillset revolves almost entirely around the defensive, leaving battle to continue fleeing, shifting rooms to allow it to escape more easily and make it more difficult for that hinder it to reach it. Those who would seek to end it must give chase, attacking as they charge through the dungeon, dealing with (or ignoring and bypassing) the obstacles and entities that get in their way. Those that fall behind are subject to a massive blastwave of Atomic damage that would easily wipe out the less-hardy, although escaping to a side-room before it hits and waiting out the heavy radiation until the dungeon restores itself would prevent the worst coming to pass. Those that defeat it would fully stabilise the dungeon and gain the ability to push through the space between worlds while inside to enter the Spirit World beyond, a dangerous cityscape caught between atomic devastation and restoration.

The Echo is unlikely to escape the dungeon.
It is unlikely, but still possible. Were something to radically alter the dungeon's structure by blocking off the ring-form, or should another great flood of Atomic mana enter the dungeon, it would either flee into the Spirit World adjacent to the dungeon, or into the physical world, bringing ruin to the town once more.
If someone were to somehow take control of the Spirit, the same could also happen.


Dulcinea blinks, once more herself and in the room with the others.

[The Nottest of Daves]

"Well, that was certainly enlightening... Sergeant Archer, please attend me, I have finally been able to determine exactly what is happening in this dungeon."

She starts her explanation, informing him first about the dungeon itself, moving on to the standard spawns, and finally discussing the danger *The Tailor's Fleeing Echo could pose to the city of Marefore.

"What are your thoughts on this matter, Sergeant? Do you feel your equipment would be sufficient to turn the tables on this Spirit given what you've seen the rest of us be able to manage in combat, or would you suggest withdrawal to gather additional forces?"