Dig Deeper

**Dig Deeper** is the forty-second episode of Reflection.

*Stillness is a concept unknown to OPIA. A gigantic cube of eyeballs appears in Fuse city and Arg0s and Ace are sent to investigate. Meanwhile Stein's operation is immediately put underway.*

## Summary

Ridill spends time in Station One attempting to do impromptu brain surgery on herself using her ESP with the goal of alleviating the effects of the Lake of Oblivion. The process causes her to relive an old memory of Willow and Ruth. Treble eventually arrives and takes Ridill back to OPIA to facilitate Stein's operation. The two are joined by Willow, Cast, Mic, and Nine. Together, they are capable of more or less completely restoring Stein's lost organs and replacing the Flame that Eternity ripped out of him. He awakens and is seemingly restored to proper mental faculties, although OPIA restricts him to remaining within the building for the time being. Elsewhere in Fuse City, Ace and Arg0s enter one of Cal's bars, where a strange cube of eyeballs has manifested onstage. They realize the object is emitting messages in morse code. After translating them, the cube unfurls into a Demon of Instrumentality and begs Arg0s to find Fio's "last hope" before dying. The group exits the bar, and a GEIST husk walks up to them before collapsing. However, while Ace and Cal see a husk, Arg0s sees something entirely different. He realizes that he is under the influence of Instrumentality's possession.

Back at OPIA, Ridill checks up on Basil and Cam. At Basil's request, she's decided to make a kind of "mask" that can stabilize her new Demonic body against outside influence. She asks Basil a few questions to get a handle on the specifications of the mask, and then leaves. Out of the corner of her eye, Basil sees a memory of an old conversation she had with Cam back from when she first joined OPIA, where the two were discussing Cam's aversion to violence. In the VR chamber, Willow begins her second try at completing Grasp the Earth's trial, with a new team consisting of Treble, Ruth, G-Willow, and Mic. Ace and Cal continue to guide the possessed Arg0s through Fuse City as he sees visions of Demons and strange golden light. After they're approached by a platoon of GEIST soldiers, Ace has Cal ride off with Arg0s as he handles the soldiers. Cal takes his motorcycle down the highway to the Undercity with Arg0s in tow as the two are trailed by GEIST soldiers and helicopters, which Arg0s perceives as Demons of Instrumentality. Meanwhile, Basil spends some time with Saru and Unit 04. They are suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the Pristine One, who rushes off to OPIA, prompting Basil's group to chase after him. They end up at one of Dr. Verona's labs, where she gives the Pristine One a cache of supplementary Elements to help fortify Demons against non-consensual Flame intake. Verona then runs towards the VR lab after getting a notification that Treble and Willow have both lost an arm.

Grasp's trial continues. Willow's team gives their all against the memory of Hex, and together they manage to outlast the attack that she used to kill Grasp's previous wielder in World Six. Mic tanks a meteor and Willow loses an arm in the process, although she gets it replaced easily. The trial then moves to a memory of World Four, where Willow pilots a reconstruction of the Demon body that Grasp was summoned into in this world. The team beats this trial when Treble encounters a memory of Vortigern, a famous hero of World Four who personally slighted her. She ends up breaking the simulation's chronology by attacking him and teleporting outside the building, which technically fulfilled the requirement of escaping World Four's Inquisitors, which Grasp didn't manage to in the real world. The simulation then moves to a memory of World Three, which is skipped over due to it being embarrassing. Treble allows Ridill to save a recording of it for personal consumption, however. The trial progresses to its final stage. Grasp asks Treble to help facilitate this final encounter. The simulation moves to what is assumed to be World One, where Willow is suddenly attacked by Gram inside the black suit that appeared inside the warped Beleth. Willow's goal here is to discover why Grasp is showing her this memory in particular, with Treble providing occasional hints. After exchanging blows with Gram, Willow quickly figures it out: this isn't a memory of World One, but rather the Old World. She suddenly awakens to Grasp the Earth's truth: a connection to each and every world that came before, beyond just the Burning World, all the way down to the original Earth. In the Undercity, Arg0s discovers a catatonic Uno, and experiences a memory of Fio creating Uno and several other robots that eventually began to die due to Flame shortage in the Derelict. Uno's "siblings" instill him with their own Flames and ask him to live on for them and escape to the world above. Uno then awakens as Treble arrives.

Basil spends her final hours of free time before the mission catching up with her replacement. They discuss how the two of them seem to represent opposite ideas but are intricately linked, namely the concepts of infinity, love, and human connection. A nearby squadron of GEIST soldiers attempt to chase after them after they realize that the conversation is causing the Apocalypse Seed inside the new experiment to bloom, but he teleports away with Basil. Meanwhile, Ace takes Sei out for a walk and Melli Luxity serves Willow a drink before being interrupted by Ruth asking for a fight. Arg0s is spending time alone in his room before being notified of something strange by Cast. He goes out to Fuse City and encounters his original body walking and talking. He realizes that Fio is piloting it. Treble eventually arrives and the three have a conversation. In the Undercity, Willow has an emotional duel with Ruth. Ridill continues to have flashes of memories, this time of her past self in World Nine meeting Treble for the first time and them exploring the ruins of their society. She experiences sequential memories of her time at OPIA before being interrupted by Ace, who talks to her about how her Isolation abilities make it so she's only very rarely *felt* much of anything. He uses Reality Break on her ESP and ruffles her hair, which causes her to cry. Some time later, everybody meets up at Melli's cafe. Ridill takes some time to herself and announces to OPIA the upcoming mission to break into the Old World and free the captives. She warns them that this mission will be uniquely lethal, but that she respects and values each and every one of them.

## Characters

### Player Characters

* Ace Galatine
* Arg0s
* Basilisk Id
* Willow Wisp
* Ridill Arondite

### FLOW

* Ruth Galatine
* Saru

### OPIA

* Dr. Verona
* Cam
* Cast
* Mic
* Cal

### Demonic Courts

* Stein
* Fio
* The Pristine One
* Sei Miscellany

### GEIST

* G-Willow
* ???

### Exulansis

* Gram
* Treble
* Hex

### Other

* Grasp the Earth
* Seagazer
* Radmilla Saakova
* Uno
* Unit 04