Tae-gun... is a lot less sure that they can actually win this. He's still going to try, of course, but more than the actual stuff the dungeon is directly throwing at them right now, the fact that it chose to change when it did, and that it cut their comms, is...

"Assume the dungeon is pulling its punches and trying to get us to drop our guard," he says as soon as they have some space to breathe. "There's no reason it'd stop at tricking us once. And we need to find the entrance pronto; destroying the core might get us trapped." Smart dungeons suck.

The fact that he never feels more alive than when he is in one is proof that he also does.

Hye-jin nods. She'd argue if he were calling for a full retreat, but he's not. He wants to know where the exit is before they light the proverbial fuse on this monstrosity, which is just smart.

"Yeah," she agrees. "I do think we're still near the core, though - and that it might be bluffing with how much it's changed. Redoing the entire algorithm that it rearranges itself by sounds too out of bounds for it, just that everything is also now sludge. But obviously let's verify first."

"This is probably the confluence starting," he says, though he's sure she already knows it; it's just procedure to always lay out your reasoning out loud in these situations because miscommunications cost lives. "I don't want to say anything is too out of bounds. I've had very nasty surprises before.

"...I agree that it's unlikely, though."

"Agreed that it's the confluence, just. I don't think it's broken into S-rank yet, and... this feels like a bluff to me, if that makes sense? There were too many things at once, without enough solid, concrete gains."

"You're not wrong." He's probably just anxious. It'll probably be fine. It'll hopefully be fine.

But, well, exit first.

Indeed! Exit first.

They don't have any landmarks to navigate by, anymore, but they've long worked out a way to systematically use their powers to judge direction and distance. The comms are down, but their computers are not, and so they can calculate the trajectory back to the exit, if the exit were where it would have been before the dungeon turned to sludge, and -

"- Ha!" says Hye-jin, a little smugly.

...he needs to wipe that smirk off her face.

Ack, that's backlash, he'll turn that into a laugh that's only a little bit forced. "Point to you."

Then serious again. "We should step outside to communicate the changes to the team before trying to take it out, but it seems like it should still be doable with just the two of us."

Nod!

"Yeah. We don't want them sending anyone in after us if we don't need them."

The esper resources are now at a precious premium. Best to work to avoid wasting them.

So he floats them outside to find—

—pandaemonium. The support team is is reorganising itself so that 3/4 of it can be send elsewhere because dungeons are spawning everywhere, and from the way some authorities have been called to try to get the crowd of onlookers to safety they may be able to guess that a different dungeon appeared somewhere nearby, one that's probably started spewing monsters. Their comms reconnect and they get confirmation of same, plus official warning that the guilds have agreed that confluence has started.

It's not chaos, though, because they've been preparing for months; rather, it's the business and stress associated with putting a complicated and important plan into motion. And as it's literally only just started, this is just the opening salvo, which is typically followed by a short lull before a gradual but rapid ramp up.

Tae-gun types a shorthand report and sends it through, then looks at Hye-jin to check whether there's anything more she wants to do outside before they go back in.

Nope, she's good. Her own brief report has been sent, and they're free to head back inside and try to wrap this up quickly.

If less quickly than they otherwise would. This probably merits them going a bit more all-out than they'd planned to, though, especially given that the rest of today's schedule is definitely all thrown to hell.

Yeah. Though, for the record, they're still following the habit of burning her backlash before his when they can; with his backlog whatever she manages to acrue will disappear without too much trouble, and take out more of his in so doing. As long as it doesn't kill her, anyway.

But they're not going to even get close to that possibility.

She was totally right, though, about being able to win. They do still take out the core. No S-rank sludge dungeon for the next confluence, she's sure all of the espers in the world are heartbroken.

Once they're properly out, the remaining crew is just a couple of people—now is not the time to pretend their star players need any more support than they actually do—and their schedule has been cleared for the day. Quasar will also be holding an all-hands in about three hours, when every on-duty esper who isn't taking care of any emergencies is projected to be done with their current dungeons. Barring said emergencies, attendance is mandatory; all Korean guilds are doing the same thing, but staggered, so that they can all cover for each other.

...and, well, Hye-jin's attendance isn't mandatory, given her relationship with the guild, but it's... strongly advised. Otherwise, her only way to stay on the loop will be the semi-public comms all espers in the country have access to. Which aren't nothing! But the Korean esper scene is very guild-reliant, so.

Yeah, yeah, she'll show up, she's not going to be screwing over herself and Korea with her petty pride. And she's less mad at Quasar itself, and more mad at the guild president. Anyway, lives are on the line, of course she's showing up, people die (or get snatched away into dungeons forever) if she doesn't do her job well enough.

If you need to hold my hand outside of the split silo, I'm fine with it. Feel free to grab it if you need to, okay?

Confluences are bad and all.

I should be fine.

He's handled much, much worse without a partner at all. This really doesn't even compare.

Yeah. But pre-negotiated consent and all.

Bad idea for us to get in an emergency and for you to not think of options that are there.

Fair enough.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Not everyone is attending in-person, and even the people who are are spread between a handful of auditoriums with the address being made virtually, but Lee Tae-gun is of course invited to be in the main auditorium, where he can be reassuringly there for everyone.

"Good afternoon, everyone! I don't want to take up too much of your time. I know this will be some of you guys' first confluence, though, so I will go over the basics, and then cover some operational and logistical concerns.

"Confluences happen about two to three times a decade, and just like no one really understands where dungeons come from or why they happen, no one understands why confluences happen either. The short version is that they are a period lasting between one and six months during which the frequency and power of the dungeons that crop up all over the world reaches critical levels. A few of the big, named S-rank dungeons that no one's been able to seal yet only appear during confluences, while others always appear during confluences even if they also appear at other times. Additionally, several new dungeons appear to, and please don't read too much into this phrasing, opportunistically make use of the time when we're all busy dealing with their bigger siblings to become bigger, themselves.

"I don't want to overstate the danger, but I don't want to understate it either. We've managed to create some very good systems to deal with confluences when they happen, but they are taxing our system and they are very difficult to deal with. Both espers and non-espers will be spread thin, and everyone's workload will be necessarily increased. During confluences, you should consider every other esper your ally, and forget about guilds or what-have-you. We're all working together, here, for the good of Korea and the world, and cross-organisational teams will be the rule rather than the exception. You'll be seeing many new faces and we'll be expecting you all to be showing your best faces. Misunderstandings are always risky, but when working with people you've never worked with before they can be deadly. Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you emit, to copy a certain saying. Everyone will be extremely stressed out, backlash levels will be much higher on average, and exhaustion and frayed tempers are to be expected.

"Your comms system has numerous functionalities that will be invaluable. It's usually not worth the bandwidth cost, but for the duration of confluences, you will all have access to live maps of dungeons all over the world. It's usually best for people to stay local, of course, for familiarity and specialisation reasons, but any espers that have more niche or specific powers may find themselves being called much farther afield than they are used to.

"You all have access to information packets elaborating on all of this, and to anyone doing their very first confluence, I urge you to read it all in detail. I'm going to go over some of the most important points, here, though, to make sure we're all on the same page..."