#probabilitor

Of course, no sooner had Stan said this than the vending machine door leading to the portal room in the basement suddenly burst open. Ford boldly stepped out of it amidst the smoke pouring out around him, his manner fierce and resilient as he tried to subdue the small, strange, octopus like creature entangled around his wrist.

“Get down!” the author ordered above the startled gasps of his family members, especially as the creature launched itself off his arm. “Don’t let it taste human flesh!”

The kids were quick to comply, narrowly dodging the bizarre creature as it scurried around the gift shop frantically, angrily hissing all the while. “W-what is it?” Dipper asked as he climbed onto a chair, both alarmed and curious by such a strange sight.

“Can we keep it?” Mabel asked with a genuinely fascinated grin.

“Kill it! Kill it!” Stan shouted, swatting the monster with his newspaper as it skittered past him.

Ford paid none of them much mind as he deftly pursued the creature, electricity sparking from the futuristic gauntlet on his right hand as he finally managed to corner the beast. “Patience… and…” the author muttered, his movements slow and calculated as he made his approach on the still-growling monster. When it finally seemed like the monster was about to make a move, however, Ford countered it first, pouncing at the beast and easily shocking it into submission using his gauntlet. “Gotcha!” he proclaimed with a triumphant grin as he held the monster’s limp, tentacled form up for the others to see. “Haha! Now that I’m back in this dimension, I’ll have to thank Garnet for inspiring the design of the design of my electro-gauntlet. It works even better than I expected it to!”

“Great, now get that thing outta here,” Stan remarked with an impatient scowl as Ford passed him. “It smells like if death could barf.”

“Wait! Great Uncle Ford!” Dipper hurried up to the author with an eager smile, still holding onto journal 2. “Do you need any help with that? I’ve read all about these creatures in your journal and I think I know how to-”

“No!” Ford quickly interupted, his manner firm but fair as he addressed his nephew. “I’m sorry, Dipper, but the weird, dark road I travel, I’m afraid you cannot follow.” A beat of stark, rather ominous silence followed this, though the author was quick to break it a moment later with an upbeat smile as he retreated back into the basement. “Well, call me for dinner!”

“Oh, maybe next time then?” Dipper offered, though his smile quickly faltered as the vending machine closed up once more, Ford disappearing behind it. “O-or not. Or never…”

“Aw, Dipper, don’t take it so hard,” Mabel attempted to comfort her brother by placing a hand on his shoulder, only for Stan to callously interject.

“No, do take it hard!” the conman snapped coldly. “Take it hard and serious. My brother is a dangerous know-it-all, and the stuff he’s messing with is even worse. I’ve been pretty lenient about letting you kids hang around the Gems all summer, but Ford is where I draw the line. Do yourself a favor and stay away from him, ya hear me?”

“But Grunkle Stan,” Dipper protested intently, not about to let himself be deterred from asking Ford his abundance of accumulating questions any longer. “All summer long I’ve wanted to know who the author of the journals was. Now the guy lives in our basement and I can’t even talk to him. How is that fair?”

“Life’s not fair, kid,” Stan remarked, rolling his eyes. “Don’t worry about what’s in the basement. I’d say you saw more than enough of it the other day… A-anyway, you belong up here with me and Mabel.”

“Yeah! Besides, this Friday is the epic made-for-TV movie crossover event of the century,” Mabel smiled brightly as she held up the TV guide ad for said crossover. “Dogcopter Meets Ducktective! Steven’s coming over to watch it with us, we’re all gonna wear our official Dogcopter propeller hats, its gonna be great! It’ll be all the mystery and adventure you’ll need this week!”

“You bet it will be!” Stan remarked, just as eager for the special as his niece was. “For years we’ve been wanting to see that duck and that dog cross paths and now our dreams are finally about to come true! It better live up to our expectations or else I’ll… I, uh… huh. What do kids nowadays do when they wanna complain about something?”

“Usually they just do it online and make long whiny posts about how things didn’t turn out the way they wanted to and why the writers are wrong for not doing things their way,” Mabel noted with a shrug.

“Really? Geez, how pathetic.”

As Stan and Mabel continued commiserating over their excitement about the upcoming crossover, Dipper had all but checked out of the conversation entirely in favor of turning his attention back towards the vending machine. Unknown, but intriguing light sparked through the cracks behind it, no doubt part of whatever mysterious invention or project Ford was likely working on down in the basement below. Whatever was going on on the other side of that door, Dipper couldn’t help but want to be a part of it, or at the very least finally get the chance to finally ask Ford the questions he had been asking all summer. To finally be on the same level with someone who understood just how important and vital it was to ask those questions in the first place. To finally have the opportunity to get perspective on the elusive and exciting mysteries of Gravity Falls from someone who had spent years studying them firsthand and was enthralled by their bizarre uniqueness as much as he was.

And yet… as it stood, he couldn’t. Because just as he had been all summer, the author of the journals, or rather, his very own great uncle, was still so close but so far out of his reach.

Whenever Mabel wrote a letter home to her and Dipper’s parents, she made sure to spare no expense when it came to the finer details of their fantastical, often rather harrowing summer escapades in Gravity Falls. Of course, given Mabel’s infamously active imagination and how bizarre and flowery her accounts of such misadventures usually were, their parents never showed any signs of taking too much stock in believing her stories in their responses. Even so, that didn’t stop her from writing about them all the same, and in her latest letter to them, she had much to tell indeed.

“Dear Mom and Dad,” Mabel began, dictating the letter aloud as she sat on the living room floor to write it out. “We’ve been in Gravity Falls for the few months and so much has happened! Just the other day, gravity reversed itself, almost destroying the whole universe and wrecking the whole town!”

At that moment, Mabel happened to glance up at the TV, which was playing a fitting report on the damage the portal’s opening had caused throughout Gravity Falls as a whole. “Well, they say it was just an earthquake,” Lazy Susan said as she stood outside of Greasy’s Diner as a crane was attempting to set it back into its normal position. “But you know what I think? I think I’m gonna have to start serving pineapple upside-right cake! Haha, am I right? …Am I right?”

As the crane ended up clumsily dropping the diner, the shot cut to Mayor Dewey giving a speech downtown. “Good people of Gravity Falls!” the mayor addressed the crowd before him somewhat anxiously. “I-I know that throughout this summer, our fair town here has been plagued by a serious of, er… uh, mishaps. Like this recent mysterious earthquake… or that giant hand-shaped spaceship coming a few weeks ago… or that giant robot ordeal a few weeks before that… or the lake being stolen a few weeks before that… or that scary red eyeball appearing in the sky a few weeks before that…” Dewey paused, a concerned frown crossing his features as a beat of awkward silence passed through the crowd in light of this derailment off topic. “Wait, what was I talking about again?”

As the news report continued, Mabel turned her attention back to her letter, eager to detail the most recent happenings to her parents. “But the coolest part of the summer was when Grunkle Stan’s twin brother came out of this portal-thingy. Now we have two grunkles for the price of one! And they are adorable together!” Upon finishing her letter, Mabel drew a sketch of both Stan and Ford, their expressions surly and grumpy though they were still peacefully holding hands all the same.

“Hi, Mabel!” Steven greeted with a smile as he entered the shack a moment later. “What are you up to?”

“Hiya, Steven! I was just finishing up a letter to my parents about all the stuff that’s been going on around here,” Mabel explained, holding said letter up. “Though at this rate, with so many huge things going on lately, I think its gonna be longer than I anticipated…”

“Yeah, things have been… pretty intense lately…” Steven noted, his smile dissipating as he rubbed his arm and looked to the side. “Garnet and Pearl still haven’t talked to each other after the whole… ya know, Sardonyx thing, and I’m pretty sure none of the Gems are still really over getting their memories back… I just hope that everything will sort itself out and things can finally get back to normal again soon…”

“I’m sure they will,” Mabel reassured with a bright smile, one that was soon accompanied by a newfound rush of warmth in her cheeks as she glanced down at the young Gem’s hand, which happened to be right within her reach as he stood not too far away from her. Really, it would have been so very easy to reach out and take it in an act of solace and comfort given his downcast manner. And perhaps she would have worked up the nerve to do so too… if her brother hadn’t ended up rushing in right before she could get the chance.

“Mabel! Steven!” Dipper exclaimed as he entered the room, carrying a rather large box. “You’ll never guess what I found at the store today!”

“It looks like… a box,” Steven ventured, his small smile returning.

“Dogs!” Mabel exclaimed, forcing herself to perk up. “Dogs with hats!”

“No,” Dipper shook his head, opening the box up only to reveal another, much more decorated box inside of it, which he held up for the pair to see. “It’s my favorite fantasy-talking, level-counting, statistics and graph-paper involving game of all time: Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons! Do you guys wanna play it with me?”

“Well… I do like unicorns,” Mabel noted as she looked over the game’s intricate fantastical box art. “And that hot elf looks promising.”

“Yeah, it looks like it’s a lot of fun, like Sugar Country, or Hint!” Steven chimed in. “How do you play?”

“The rules are super simple,” Dipper assured as he opened the game’s surprisingly large instruction booklet. “First you roll a 38-sided die to determine the level of each player’s statistical analysis poweroid. These orbs relate directly to the amount of quadrants your team as dominion over, which is inverse to the anti-quadrants in your quadrant satchel.”

A beat of stilted silence passed in the aftermath of this rather daunting explanation as Steven and Mabel exchanged an equally bewildered look, neither of them needing to communicate to each other that they had next to no idea what Dipper was talking about. “Uh… w-well that… that sounds, uh…” Steven’s uncertain stumbling soon devolved into exactly what he really felt. “…I’ll be honest, I have no idea what any of that meant…”

“Ok, ok, so after we do all that confusing stuff,” Mabel interjected with a wave of her hand. “Then so we get to ride unicorns?”

“Yes!” Dipper nodded, much to his sister’s excitement, which dissipated almost immediately after he continued. “And… no. First, we make a graph.”

“Ugh, this is like Homework the Game…” Mabel groaned, any interest she might have had in the game completely gone upon hearing this.

“Oh come on, you guys, its not that bad,” Dipper retorted. “Just try it for a round or two. You never know, you might have fun.”

“Ew, how can you even mention fun in the same sentence as all that gross math you gotta do just to play the dang game?” Mabel asked, sticking her tongue out in disdain.

“Well, I’d try it, Dipper, but I think it’s just a little too… complicated for me,” Steven said with sincerity. “And by complicated I mean I’d probably get a headache just trying to figure out how to set the game up…”

“I think most normal people would, Steven,” Mabel remarked, crossing her arms.

Dipper let out a small huff of aggravation at this slight, but even so, he persisted in trying to convince them. “W-well once you get going, its easy,” he assured, even if that wasn’t exactly the truth. After all, Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons was notorious for taking an extensive amount of time and dedication to learn how to play properly, but as far as Dipper was concerned, neither Steven nor Mabel needed to know that. “Besides, I need at least two people to play, so could one of you just-”

“Oh, would you look at that!” Mabel exclaimed with faux surprise as Soos happened to enter the room, giving her leeway to flee to the other side of the den. “Two people!”

“Well wait, with Steven standing here, doesn’t that technically make three?” Soos asked, unaware of the previously unfolding conversation. “Or are we using some kind of new counting system here that I don’t know about.”

“Uh, no…” Dipper frowned, slightly confused before getting back to the matter at hand. “But anyway, Soos, is there any way you’d be up for a little game of D, D, and More D?”

“Aw, sorry, Dipper,” the handyman said, truthfully apologetic. “But I don’t really go for that pen and paper kind of stuff. I’m more of an FCLORPer.”

“…A what?”

“FCLORP,” Soos reiterated with a proud grin. “Foam and Cardboard Legitimate Outdoor Role Play. It is where a passionate brethren of craftsman bring their dreams to magical reality!”

“Oh, I think I’ve heard of that,” Steven spoke up, intrigued. “Isn’t that where everyone dresses up in cardboard costumes and fights each other with foam swords? Now that sounds like fun!”

“It totally is, dude,” Soos readily agreed. “You should see us when we break the plastic ball pit balls out. That’s when things really get intense!”

“Uh… well, thanks anyway, Soos,” Dipper said, still rather disappointed that he had no one to play with. Or so it seemed, until Stan walked in.

“Say,” the conman began with an already goading smirk as he noticed the game box his nephew was holding. “Is that the game that’s mostly math and writing and isn’t anything like the picture on the box?”

“Yes, it is!” Dipper said with newfound excitement. “You wanna play it with me, Grunkle Stan?”

“Ha, as if!” Stan laughed rather mockingly as he grabbed the rule book. “Look, kid, I prefer to do my dice rolling in Vegas. Besides, only a game designed by nerds would have ‘charisma’ as a fantasy power. Heh, and check this out,” he turned to a random page in the rule book and began reading out loud callously. “When facing yon adversaries, shield thyself under an elfin buttress.”

“Ha!” Mabel chuckled, thoroughly amused. “Say it again!”

“Buttress!” Stan repeated before both him and Mabel broke down into a round of teasing laughter over the game’s rather self-indulgent manner.

“Hey!” Dipper protested petulantly, taking the rule book back amidst his somewhat flustered embarrassment.

“Aw, come on, you guys,” Steven interjected, clearly sympathetic for Dipper, though he still didn’t really get the jist of the game himself. “Just because this game isn’t really for us, doesn’t mean you have to be so mean about it.”

“Yeah, what Steven said,” Dipper staunchly and crossly agreed. “Heck, maybe you guys just aren’t smart enough to understand it.”

“Uh… actually I think that kinda undermined what I was just trying to say…” Steven noted, though both him and Dipper were overpowered by more bemused laughter from Stan and Mabel.

“Heh, sorry, dude,” Soos remarked to Dipper, somewhat caught up in the round of levity himself. “But it is kind of nerdy. Well, I’m off to lay siege to a goblin fortress.” At this, the handyman girded himself with a sloppily made cardboard helmet and sword before boldly running off to begin his FCLORPing quest. “To my grandma’s backyard!”

Since Dipper had been unable to find any human opponents to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons with, he decided to resort to the next best thing he could think of. Which was how he ended up setting the game board up outside the shack facing off in a less than exciting round of the game against Gompers the goat.

“Oh nice! You rolled a 17!” Dipper said with something of a forced grin after he himself rolled the die for the goat, who only let out a dull bleat in response. “Aaaand… this is sad. Maybe I should just go back to obsessing over Wendy again…”

Dipper let out something of a defeated sigh as he leaned back away from the board, unable to keep himself from feeling just the slightest bit lonely. True, he had reconciled with Mabel and Steven following the portal incident and they were all once again on even ground with each other, as they should have been. And yet, for whatever reason, he still felt somewhat distanced from the pair, almost as if remnants of that unsavory tension were lingering behind even still. Their unanimous rejection of his invitation to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons with him did make sense; after all, Dipper knew just how complicated the game must come across to the outsider looking in. And yet, the fact that neither of them really seemed very interested in learning how to play it, even if for nothing more than his sake, spoke volumes to him about exactly how much support they were willing to give him. It was abundant in times of tribulation, when they all found that they needed to lean on each other to remain standing strong; but in the smaller, quieter moments, that solidarity was, disappointingly enough, nowhere to be found.

As lost in pensive thought as he was, Dipper didn’t even notice that Gompers had gotten ahold of his 38-sided die until the goat attempted to munch down on it, much to his sudden alarm. “Hey! Give that back!” Dipper ordered, attempting to retrieve the die only for Gompers to maintain his surprisingly firm hold on it. “C’mon, Gompers, let go!” With another heavy pull back, the goat finally released the die, only for it to go flinging back past Dipper and roll under the nearby porch instead. “Ugh, seriously?” Dipper muttered to himself in exasperation as he crawled over to retrieve it. However, right after he had slipped under the porch and began reaching around for the die, the loose soil near the base of the house unexpectedly shifted, crumbling apart right underneath him. Before he could even think to catch himself, Dipper suddenly found himself falling through the newly created opening, passing through several beams and cobwebs before roughly hitting the basement floor. While somewhat shaken, fortunately he didn’t seem to be injured as he began to slowly pick himself up and finally reclaim the elusive 32-sided die, which just so happened to be sitting right next to the now-contained monster Ford had defeated in the gift shop earlier. Even so, Dipper made sure to take care in reaching for the die, lest he aggravate the dangerous creature, only to be abruptly halted right before he could reach it.

“Dipper! Stop!”

“G-Great Uncle Ford!” Dipper exclaimed, startled as he spun around to face the author, who looked far from pleased to see his nephew down in his off-limits lab.

“What did I say about coming down here?” Ford admonished, hands on his hips. “My work is far too dangerous for a single living soul to spend even one second—Wait! Is that a 38-sided die from Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?”

“Uh, yeah…” Dipper frowned, somewhat bewildered as he reclaimed the die and held it up for the author to see. “You know that game?”

Ford briefly smirked at this, his manner turning bold as he began to recite the game’s iconic tagline. “With pen and paper, shield and sword-”

“Our quest shall be our just reward!” Dipper joined in just as excitably before joining his uncle in a bout of bemused laughter.

“This is my favorite game in the whole multiverse!” Ford exclaimed, still grinning brightly. “I can’t believe they still make it!”

“They do! And I’ve been looking all day for someone to play it with me,” Dipper said, though his enthusiasm briefly turned to hesitation out of fear of pressing his luck with the author like he had a few days ago. “But uh, i-if you’re too busy to, I totally understand. In fact, I should probably just-”

“Dipper, my boy,” Ford interjected, placing a hand on his nephew’s shoulder before he could depart. “Do you know what this means? We must stop everything I’ve been working on at once… and play!”

Upon hearing this, Dipper couldn’t hold back a small gasp of excited surprise, knowing that the last person he had expected to gain as a welcome opponent for Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons was the author of the journals himself. However, before the pair could get to playing, the octopus creature suddenly broke free from its containment unit, launching itself at Ford and latching onto his face. The author upheld his chipper smile though as he simply tore the creature off is face, which had received a rather alarming series of burns from the monster’s somewhat toxic touch. “That’s… going to leave a mark.”

Seeing as how Steven was just as big of a fan of both Ducktective and Dogcopter as Mabel and Stan were, he eagerly joined them in preparing for the long-awaited crossover between the two properties the following day. All three of them wanted to make sure that they had the ultimate viewing experience; after all, it wasn’t every day that two such incredibly loved characters and universes came together in such a unique and exciting way.

“Ok, so it looks like we’ve got everything we need to watch the Ducktective/Dogcopter crossover tomorrow,” Mabel said as her and Steven looked over the massive mountain of snacks they had accumulate. “I even made mouth-ramps so we can pour food into our mouths without taking our eyes off the screen!” She showed one of the mouth ramps she had created off, a cardboard box filled to the brim with food with a small ramp stuck onto the side, before readily demonstrating how it worked, which was surprisingly well.

“I brought my Ducktective and Dogcopter collectable figurines down here with me so they can be part of this historic event!” Steven proclaimed as he held the figures up. “Ironically enough, I already had these two sitting next to each other on my shelf, so in a way its kinda like I almost predicted them meeting up for real like this!”

“And I used some spare taxidermied parts to mash the two of them up together the flying mystery solver: Dogtectuckcopter!” Stan proclaimed, holding the rather nightmarish amalgamation of fake duck and fake dog he had created up.

“Whoa! Its like a fusion…” Steven mused in amazement.

“Only a super messed up one!” Mabel laughed, amused. “Dipper would love that!”

“Heh, yeah, where is the little squirt anyway?” Stan asked, briefly glancing around for his apparently missing nephew. “I haven’t seen him all afternoon.”

Completely unbeknownst to the group upstairs, Dipper was merely in the basement below them with Ford, just as he had been ever since he had accidentally fallen down there. Since both of them were very well acquainted with the intricate rules of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, they had wasted no time in setting the game up and getting their campaign started. And as was usually the case with the fast-paced high fantasy game, it didn’t take very long for said campaign to build up to the epic (albeit imaginary) intensity it was known for.

“Alright,” Ford began, deftly passing the 38-sided die between his fingers as he laid out the ongoing scenario for his nephew. “You’ve entered the chamber. Princess Unattainabelle beckons you. But wait! It’s a trap! An illusion cast by Probabilitor the Annoying.”

“You know his weakness, right?” Dipper asked with a knowing smirk before they both proclaimed said weakness in unison.

“Prime statistical anomalies over 37 but not exceeding 51!” The pair exclaimed in unison as Dipper rolled the die, fortunately landing on exactly that.

“Aha! Yes!” he cheered brightly as he progressed along in the game past Probabilitor. “Take that, you cardboard wizard!”

“Hm. The old boy looks quite a bit different than he did back in my day,” Ford noted with a nostalgic smile as he looked over the wizard’s in-game artwork.

“Yeah, they change the art every few years,” Dipper said. “Thankfully you missed the period when the creators of the game tried to make it ‘cooler’ by painting everything neon and making the characters rap spells instead of just saying them. It must have been dark times, those 90s.”

“Yeesh,” Ford remarked with a bemused grin as he rolled his eyes. “Sounds like a good time to be stuck between dimensions.”

Upon hearing this, Dipper took pause, his focus on the ongoing game waning somewhat in favor of something he hadn’t really thought much about since him and Ford had begun playing. Something that was admittedly a good deal more important than scouring fake dungeons and defeating fictional wizards. “Great Uncle Ford,” he began evenly enough, hoping that would help him finally answers this time. “I’ve been meaning to ask you… Where were you before you came out of that machine? And… what have you been doing down here these past few days? Are you working on something behind that curtain?” he nodded towards the curtain covering the window that led to the portal’s cavernous chamber, which was now intentionally kept out of sight for whatever reason.

A bout of uneasy hesitation crossed the author’s expression at such pertinent inquiries, and upon that alone, Dipper’s hopes for getting any concrete answers abruptly sank. Of course, they only ended up sinking even further when Ford all but confirmed he had no intentions of giving any. “Dipper, its best if you and the family stay away from that subject…” he replied, casting a brief, somewhat worried glance behind him. “Honestly, I’m not sure any of you could handle the real answer.”

For a moment, Dipper wanted to argue that he could handle it. That, based on everything he had been through during the past several months alone, he could understand and comprehend whatever was lying in wait beyond that curtain. That he wasn’t just the naive, innocent kid that Ford no doubt took him for upon a first glance. But in the end, he knew that arguing the opposite would likely prove exactly that, which was why he decided to pursue an entirely different tangent instead. “Well… what about the Gems?” he asked, glancing aside. “You guys did used to work together way back when, right? Does that mean you’re gonna let them in on, um… everything?”

Once again, Ford hesitated, his manner clearly remorseful and conflicted even as he answered, despite his relative discomfort with the topic in general. “Under normal circumstances, I… might have, but my current relationship with the Gems is somewhat… uneasy, so to speak,” he explained as eloquently as he could. “It’ll take some time before things between all of us will even remotely resemble how they used to be, especially since Rose is… no longer around. In a way, I suppose that the falling out between us all was my fault…” The author paused, his expression sad as he let out a small sigh before shaking his head to clear it. “B-but even if everything was smooth sailing between myself and the Gems, to my understanding, now really wouldn’t be the best time to bother them with external affairs. I hear they’ve been having plenty of problems all their own lately…”

“Oh yeah…” Dipper agreed with a concerned frown. “Things have been pretty tense between the Gems ever since they got their memories back, but Pearl lying to Garnet so they could fuse into Sardonyx really didn’t help anything.”

“So that’s what happened,” Ford mused thoughtfully. “To be perfectly honest, I can’t really blame Pearl for going to such… extensive lengths. I can only imagine how losing Rose might have effected her in particular.”

“From the way she always talks about Rose, it seems like the two of them were pretty close,” Dipper noted.

“They were very close,” the author smirked somewhat nostalgically at this. “It’s part of the reason why Pearl didn’t really care for me too much for me when Rose and I first became research partners. That is, until…” Ford trailed off as he glanced down at the gameboard still sitting between them, a small, brief chuckle escaping him before he diverted away from it. “Well, never mind. I’ll save that story for another time. Certainly things between the Gems will work themselves out in the end.”

Though it seemed as though Ford intended on getting back to the game, Dipper didn’t exactly want to leave it at that, especially as he happened to remember something, or rather someone, that he had regrettably not thought too much about since before the portal opened. And now, given that he was sitting right across from the wise author of the journals himself, he figured now was a good a time as any to finally, hopefully, get some help with it. “Uh… speaking of things working out…” he began rather tentatively. “Great Uncle Ford, you’ve studied a lot of Gem stuff, right?”

“But of course,” Ford said with a somewhat proud grin. “The mysteries of Gemkind were always a highlight of my research. In fact, if I had had the time, I would have started a fourth journal completely dedicated to Gem-related topics. And… depending on how things turn out, I might still run with that idea in the future perhaps… hm…”

“Um, yeah, s-so… did you ever figure out a way to, uh… split a really unhealthy, really dangerous fusion up?” Dipper asked anxiously, trying his best to mask how desperate he really was for a ‘yes’ to this longtime question.

Yet a ‘yes’ wasn’t what Ford gave him, at least not right away as he instead looked to his nephew with slight concern. “Why do you ask?”

“W-well….” Dipper began, unsure of how to really explain this story in a way that wouldn’t remind him of how painful it really was. But upon realizing that was nigh impossible, he decided to just get on with it anyway, knowing that if Ford really did hold a solution, then that pain would be more than worth it in the end. “Near the beginning of the summer, Steven, Mabel, and I met this Gem named Lapis Lazuli. We helped her out and then she went away for a while, but when she came back, me and her hung out a lot and… w-well I guess you could say we became pretty close friends. But then… these two Gems from Homeworld showed up: Peridot and Jasper. They tried to take Steven and the Gems back with them, but we ended up stopping them and crashing their ship near the lake, and it seemed like everything was going to be ok, until…” Dipper trailed, off hesitating as he stared at the ground in front of him as he realized that, even though weeks had passed since that fateful, awful dawn on the lake’s shores, the reality of what had happened there still hadn’t gotten any easier to swallow. “U-until Jasper… forced Lapis to fuse with her so she could take all of us out. So they fused into this huge, powerful monster of a fusion named Malachite, b-but before they could attack us, Lapis took control and dragged them both into the lake, a-and… and she’s been stuck down there ever since. She’s keeping herself trapped down there and fighting Jasper pretty much every second of every day just to keep us safe… to keep me safe…”

Though Ford had been silent for the sake of intently listening to his nephew’s solemn tale up until this point, upon noticing the tears just starting to well up in Dipper’s eyes, he found he could keep quiet no longer. “Dipper…” he began gently, only to be quickly interupted.

“It’s all my fault…” Dipper muttered, the guilt in his tone palpable as he wiped his eyes dry. “And the worst part of it is, I have no idea how to save her, but I have to. I owe it to her, and e-even besides that, she doesn’t deserve to be trapped again. And that’s why… I-I was hoping maybe you could maybe help me with that?” he asked, looking to Ford with almost pleading sincerity. “The Gems have been too busy with trying to track Peridot down to do anything about this, b-but if you know how to split a fusion like Malachite up, then we could finally free Lapis!”

Ford’s expression was already full of both sympathy and remorse before he even said anything. And when he speak up on the matter as his nephew eagerly awaited his response, he decided to be completely honest; after all, there was really no point in being anything else on a subject as sensitive as this. “Dipper, I… I’m sorry,” the author began evenly, yet sincerely. “Most of my research concerning Gem fusions tended to focus more on how they were formed and functioned rather than how they fell apart. So… suffice to say my knowledge on the topic is rather… limited, at best.”

“O-oh…” Dipper was unable to hold back a disappointed sigh upon hearing this, knowing that, as usual, he was right back to square one when it came to freeing Lapis from her watery prison. “Ok, I understand… thanks anywa-”

“However,” Ford interjected with a small smile of reassurance. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be willing to figure the solution to such a complicated problem out. After all, I’d like to think that working through the impossible is something I have a certain knack for.”

“So… you’ll help?” Dipper asked, a sense of rising hope filling him.

“Yes,” the author confirmed, his smile widening. “It might not be an easy task, but I promise, I’ll do anything I can to help you rescue her.”

“Oh my gosh! Thank you so much, Great Uncle Ford!” Dipper caught Ford quite off guard with an unexpected hug, one that the author awkwardly returned as he realized just how important this matter apparently was to his nephew. Which was why, for whatever reason, he felt a strong obligation to keep the promise he had just made, no matter how difficult doing so might prove to be. “Oh! Uh, s-sorry!” Dipper exclaimed, clearly flustered as he broke away from the hug.

“Don’t be,” Ford assured with a small laugh. Even so, the author paused for a beat, knowing that while they couldn’t exactly do much to save Lapis at that very moment, there was perhaps something he could do to help raise his nephew’s no doubt still lowered spirits, even if it would be a rather small attempt at best. “You know… while I can’t tell you much about where I’ve been the past 30 years, I can show you something I brought back with me.” The author’s grin turned wry as he reached into a small pouch tied to his belt and fished out a tiny, unassuming black box, which he opened to reveal something quite incredible. Upon a first glance, it seemed to be a many-sided die, the same kind that was often used in Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, yet this one was quite different in many ways. Firstly, its crystalline surface emitted a faint, almost magical glow, but even more fascinating was the fact that the various cryptic symbols on its many sides seemed to be in a state of continual flux, constantly shifting and changing on their own accord to the point that the same symbol rarely ever appeared twice. “An infinity-sided die,” Ford proclaimed, quite proud of such a rare interdimensional find.

“Whoa…” Dipper gasped, his eyes wide with amazement as he looked to the special game piece. “That’s so cool! And… impossible!”

“These things are outlawed in 9,000 dimensions,” Ford explained, clearly just as excited as his nephew was. “You wanna know why? Look at those symbols. Infinite sides means infinite outcomes. If I rolled it, anything could happen. Our faces could melt into jelly, the world could turn into an egg, or… you could just roll an 8. Who knows? That’s why I have to keep it in this protective cheap plastic case. Now, let’s get back to the game! You’ve got Probabilitor on the ropes, though his power level ranks far above yours. You’d need to be accompanied by a level 19 paladin at least in order to get past him.”

“Ugh, of course,” Dipper groaned in exasperation. “If only we had one more player. That would make this so easy!”

“Hm…. Another player, you say?” the author mused, glancing down to the game board, or more particularly, an image of a knight in the background of its artwork. He had considered this idea earlier, when Dipper had first invited him to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons with him, in fact, but the author had put the thought aside for obvious reasons. Though now, after giving it a little more thought and with the opportunity that had just presented itself, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. “I think I know just the Gem…”

Pearl let out a small, sad sigh as she sat on the living room couch, her hands folded neatly in her lap as she stared down at them solemnly. Only about a day had passed since Garnet had discovered her deception, and as far as the white Gem knew, nothing had changed concerning her leader’s disposition concerning the situation. Or rather, concerning the massive, rather inexcusable mistake she herself had committed against her. A mistake that, despite Pearl’s best efforts, she had been completely unable to distract herself from. Not that she thought she really deserved to have a break from the memory of her wrongdoing anyway; as far as she was concerned, she deserved to carry the oppressive weight of this guilt around with her. After all, it was only fair after she had absolutely betrayed the trust of someone she respected and cared for as much as Garnet.

And so, in light of the unsteady relations between the team and a lack of any pressing missions, Pearl expected that her day would be rather uneventful as a whole. What she hadn’t been expecting, however, was for both Dipper and Ford to suddenly show up at the temple quite out of nowhere.

“Uh, hey, Pearl,” Dipper greeted somewhat tentatively as he entered the temple first.

“Oh, hello, Dipper!” Pearl replied with a warm smile that quickly fell as Ford followed in after him. “And… Stanford… What a surprise…”

“G-greetings, Pearl,” Ford offered a somewhat awkward smile and wave, one that Pearl met rather coldly, as he had honestly been expecting she would. “I simply came by to—I mean, we came by to see if you wanted to… o-or rather, if you had the time to join us in… I mean-”

“We wanted to see if you were up to playing a game with us,” Dipper interjected, getting the point across much more concisely than Ford could in his apparent discomfort in interacting with the white Gem in light of recent events.

“A game?” Pearl tilted her head in confusion as she looked between the pair skeptically. “… What kind of game?”

Ford was quick to properly collect himself at this, a small grin crossing his features as he took a small step forward and presented Pearl with a 38-sided die. “You wouldn’t by chance happen to remember Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, would you?”

Pearl was unable to contain a gasp of surprise at this, a brief smile of excitement coming along with it, though she was quick to press it away. “I-I… I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she claimed, crossing her arms as she sharply glanced away. “I’ve never even heard of… what was it again? Dungeons—something? W-well, whatever it is, I’m sure its completely ludicrous and not at all engaging or immersive or anything of the like.”

“Oh, but don’t you remember, Pearl?” Ford asked, raising an eyebrow. “30 years ago, you and used to spend many a night embroiled in epic rounds of slaying ogres and challenging each other with labyrinthine dungeons and quadratic equations. I always used to think it was a treasured pastime between the two of us. You know, after you stopped thinking I was competing against you for Rose.”

Upon hearing this lightly teasing jab, Pearl let out an appalled scoff, her cheeks lighting up in a blue blush as she glared away hotly. Dipper on the other hand, was quite surprised to hear this news. “You guys used to play D, D, and More D together?” he asked curiously.

“N-no!” Pearl exclaimed, though at the very same time, Ford offered his own enthusiastic response.

“All the time!” the author assured brightly.

“W-well, I certainly don’t remember anything of the sort!” the white Gem protested crossly.

“Perhaps you just haven’t managed to recall those memories yet?” Ford theorized thoughtfully.

“Yeah! Maybe playing the game will end up jogging your memory of it!” Dipper suggested, offering the white Gem a hopeful smile.

“I… don’t think so, Dipper,” Pearl denied gently enough, not wanting to upset her pupil, though it seemed as though she didn’t have the same consideration for the author. “After all, I have much more… important matters to attend to… You can see yourselves out.” And with that, the white Gem abruptly turned on her heel to head towards the temple gate, her arms still folded as she resisted the urge to turn back around, even as Dipper and Ford continued conversing.

“Aw man… how am I gonna get past Probabilitor now?” Dipper asked, clearly disappointed by Pearl’s rejection.

“I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” Ford reassured, placing a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Still, it really is a shame… Pearl is one of the best players I’ve ever met. After only a few hours of me explaining the game to her, she had already managed to catch up to me in almost all of her categories. And don’t even get me started on her incredible strategic abilities! One time, we were cornered against four ice dragons with essentially no magic left between either of us, and she managed to beat them back and get us out of that dungeon in only seven rolls! It was spectacular!”

“If I recall correctly…” Pearl suddenly interjected, glancing over her shoulder with a hint of a wry expression on her face. “It was five ice dragons in six rolls… Though of course,” the white Gem turned fully, finally cracking a bit of a sardonic smile. “I could be wrong. After all, my memory might still be a little hazy…”

“Well, regardless of the specifics, your tactics still were always very impressive back in the day,” Ford professed with a fond, genuine smile.

“But of course they were,” the white Gem shrugged, smirking. “After all, I learned such tactics in the uproarious intensity of an actual battlefield thousands of years ago. Applying those strategies to theoretical monsters and warlocks really isn’t that different when you think about it.”

At this, neither Pearl nor Ford could hold back a shared warm laugh, one that seemed to spark up the playful camaraderie they used to share in the past, one that they now both fully seemed to remember. And upon seeing things starting to repair themselves between the pair, Dipper felt inspired enough to present his initial offer to the white Gem yet again. “So… does this mean you’ll play with us?” he asked, hopeful.

Pearl took pause, hesitating briefly as she remembered that she deserved no such distraction from the mistake she had made against Garnet. Which meant that she didn’t deserve to enjoy herself in a pastime that she now remembered she really did enjoy quite a bit. And yet… upon meeting her young pupil’s expectant glance, she found that it was just about impossible for her to say no. “Oh, alright,” she chuckled softly. “I suppose I can join you two for a little while… “

“Pearl, I think we all know that a ‘little’ while is rarely ever little when it comes to Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons,” Ford remarked rather coyly.

The white Gem let out a genuine laugh at this, rather happy to follow after Dipper and Ford as they lead the way down to the Mystery Shack for what was bound to be an intense afternoon of dungeon spelunking and equation solving. “I can’t argue with you there.”

Sure enough, a little while had turned into an all-day campaign as Dipper, Ford, and Pearl hypothetically set out on their grandiose, mathematical quest. True to the author’s recounting, the white Gem was surprisingly skilled at the game, her recollection of its intricate rules returning to her memory practically the moment she sat down to play it. And with that recollection came a renewed enthusiasm for the playful pastime her and Ford used to share, one that showed itself in every roll of the die and move across the board she made. Seeing as how both Ford and Dipper already had plenty of enthusiasm towards the game themselves even before Pearl had joined them, this made for an air of genuine excitement as they all congregated in the basement lab to carve out their intrepid victory.

“Excellent work, Dipper! You finally managed to defeat that troublesome fire golem!” Pearl proclaimed with a congratulatory grin.

“Yeah,” Dipper said with a slightly exasperated sigh. “Now if only I could have stopped those woodland imps from stealing all my healing potions…”

“Heh, speaking of imps,” Ford remarked, sending Pearl a wry, reminiscent smirk. “That reminds me of the time Amethyst snuck down here and attempted to steal just about every morsel of food I had in the house.”

“Oh, that was a mess,” Pearl chuckled heartily upon hearing the familiar tale. “I remember there was a trail of food leading all the way between here and the temple! No wonder that horrific moth man creature attacked us that night when we were trying to clean it up!”

“A moth man?” Dipper asked, quite intrigued. “Like the one in the journal?”

“The very one,” Ford nodded in confirmation. “It was so dark that we barely even saw him coming until he jumped at me out of nowhere to try and get my lantern.”

“Oh, you should have seen it, Dipper!” Pearl laughed openly. “The bold, brazen ‘author of the journals’, cowered in fear against a tree, crying for mercy against a cloud of moths, of all things. It was hilarious!”

“I-in my defense, that ‘cloud of moths’ just so happened to be in the shape of a man, and a very intimidating one at that!” Ford protested, clearly flustered.

“Ah yes, so intimidating that it only took one toss of Rose’s shield to completely dispel it and save you, yet again,” the white Gem remarked, her tone still coy and playful. “Then again, I suppose it wasn’t entirely your fault, Stanford. After all, you were rather danger prone back in those days.”

“Well, if I was, then I suppose I was able to consider myself lucky to have such reliable friends like you, Rose, and the others,” Ford remarked with a warm, genuine smile, one that seemed to carry an underlying layer of unspoken remorse to it as well.

Pearl seemed to mirror this, her own expression somewhat sad and hesitant before shifting into a soft, nostalgic smile, a smile that she didn’t try to chase away this time. “Friends… right…” she muttered, glancing away briefly before quickly perking up and returning her attention back to the game once more. “Now, where were we? Ah yes! Chasing down those pesky imps…”

At this sudden change of gears, Dipper and Ford exchanged a brief glance of confusion, but even so, they were quick to follow Pearl’s lead and get their heads back into the game. After all, from where they stood now, they were bound to have an entire untold adventure ahead of them.

While Mabel knew from over 12 years of firsthand experience that Dipper usually kept rather late hours, most of the time that fact didn’t upset her own normal sleeping routine too much. However, this particular night was an exception to that, as she was finding it just about impossible to fall asleep with her brother intently plotting out his ongoing Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons strategy only a few feet away from her.

“Ok, so if I had a dragon here…” Dipper muttered to himself as he sketched out his plans amidst several pieces of graph paper. “Oh, and then a plus the fire mode over here-”

“Dipper, are you ever going to sleep?” Mabel asked as she rolled over in bed to face him, finally exasperated to the point that she couldn’t keep silent on it any longer. “You’ve been saying dork words for hours…”

“Sorry, Mabel, but I’ve got to finish this dungeon,” Dipper countered, not even bothering to glance up as he continued working. “It’s gonna totally stump Pearl and Great Uncle Ford tomorrow, I can’t wait to see the look on their faces!”

Mabel took pause upon hearing this, her already present frown deepening as she sat up. “You’ve, uh… been spending a lot of time with old Fordsy lately, huh?” she asked, her tone innocently curious enough. She didn’t see much of a reason to mention Pearl in her question, namely because she knew that Dipper already spent a good deal of time with the white Gem through his sword lessons, which meant that this was nothing really new. His recently developed comradery with Ford, on the other hand was. And for whatever reason, Mabel wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it.

“You have no idea,” Dipper said with an enthusiastic smile. “I knew the author must have been cool, but he’s better than I imagined! And… he doesn’t make fun of me like you and Grunkle Stan do.”

“Ha! Give him time!” Mabel teased, though she instantly wished she hadn’t upon seeing her brother’s expression sour at this remark. “Nah, you got me,” she faked playfulness, though once more Dipper offered her no response. Her own brief smile faded as she lay back down, letting out a small, worried sigh while staring up at the ceiling. True, the painful gap between them torn asunder by the portal had been mostly repaired, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still holes left behind all the same. Holes that she was only now starting to notice and had essentially no idea how to fix. “You got me…”

The Mystery Shack was abuzz with excitement the following day, all in anticipation of the long-awaited, massively hyped-up Ducktective/Dogcopter crossover that was set to air that evening. Steven had already arrived about an hour ago, and in that span of time, him and Mabel had gone through just about every theory and wish they had for the special, both of them more than eager to finally get a chance to see it. It was easy to say that they had sufficiently prepared themselves emotionally and mentally for this grand crossover by the time Grenda arrived to view it with them.

“Thanks for coming over to watch the crossover with us tonight, Grenda,” Mabel smiled as her and Steven greeted the larger girl at the door.

“Of course!” Grenda exclaimed in her usual boisterous way as she held up her Ducktective and Dogcopter flags. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for these two characters to meet my entire life!”

“Same here,” Steven nodded in agreement. “Or, ya know, at least ever since they announced the crossover last month.”

“Hey hey, look at you!” Mabel smirked as she noticed Stan coming downstairs, wearing his finest suit and tie. “Someone’s all dressed up.”

“It’s a big night,” Stan remarked as he adjusted his tie. “I never thought I’d live to see the day where a dog with a propeller on its back meets a duck who solves murder mysteries for a living. It really is a wonderful time to be alive.”

No sooner had the conman finished speaking than the alarm on Steven’s phone suddenly went off, eliciting an excited gasp from everyone. “It’s time!” the young Gem announced happily.

“Viewing positions, everyone!” Mabel ordered, pointing to the living room as they all began making a mad dash towards it. However, the entire group stopped short just as they passed into its threshold, surprise and disappointment hitting all of them as they caught sight of the graph paper and extensive notes regarding Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons strewn about all over the room. And, sitting in the very center of the den, Dipper, Ford, and Pearl were all completely engrossed in their ongoing game, all three of them clearly having a fun time as they were all but oblivious to the group that had just walked in on them.

“Ah! Graph paper! Kill it!” Grenda shouted, furiously stomping on the nearest piece of it.

“Uh… what’s going on in here?” Steven asked, much more calmly. “And wait, Pearl? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know…” Pearl began, sending her young ward a casual smile. “Just completely decimating these two in a duel for the mystical forbidden treasure of old.”

“Not for long, you won’t,” Dipper challenged brazenly as he rolled the die, though Mabel interupted before the game could go any further.

“Uh, Dipper? Could you guys maybe move this to another room?” she asked, only thinly veiling her annoyance.

“No dice!” Ford said. “We ran out of room in the basement and we’re going for a world record. Now… dice!” And with that, the author rolled, landing exactly the number he had been hoping for to advance. “Ha! 32, yes! 7,000 points damage!”

“Oh man! You got me!” Dipper laughed, accepting this setback gracefully.

“Hm… lucky roll…” Pearl mused, offering Ford a coy grin of defeat.

“Ugh, why? Why with this?” Stan groaned, not bothering to hide his aggravation with the trio as he sent Ford and Pearl an irritated glare in particular. “You two wanna break some records? You’ve already broken two for world’s nerdiest old man and world’s nerdiest… rock person?”

“Ugh… why am I not surprised that you don’t understand, Stan?” Pearl crossed her arms. “Amethyst used to crack her sarcastic little remarks about myself and Ford back in the day when we used to play this game together, just like you are now. You and her really are two of a kind.”

“Yeah, I can’t say I really blame her,” Stan retorted just as dryly, though he did briefly glance away at the remembrance of how much things had soured between him and Amethyst recently. “It’s not like you two don’t have it coming.”

“Hey, at least we’re not all keyed up to watch some kid’s show,” Ford countered, meeting his brother’s unimpressed expression evenly.

“Hey! I’ll have you know that this Ductective/Dogcopter crossover is gonna be legendary!” Stan snapped defensively. “People will be talking about how hilarious and tragic it is for decades! Or at least for like, a week or something.”

“I don’t get a lot of either of them, but I like animals in human situations,” Grenda pointed out.

“Plus, the music is really good,” Steven added. “And don’t even get me started on those crazy plot twists in both shows! They have so much in common, its like they were made to be together!”

“A-and its starting soon!” Mabel urged fretfully. “Grunkle Stan, do something!”

Stan complied, letting out an exasperated huff as he reached to remove the graph paper covering the television, only for Ford to intercept him by suddenly grabbing his wrist to stop him. “Move that and pay the price,” the author warned, his tone surprisingly grave. Startled, Stan took pause for a moment, only to instantly regain his previously sardonic attitude.

“Oh what? Fifty magical elf dollars?” the conman deadpanned, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t mock our fantastical monetary system!” Ford snapped fiercely.

“Honestly, Stan, you’re just being childish about this whole thing!” Pearl said just as sharply.

“Yeah, I’m the one being childish, not you guys and your game about knights and fairy princesses and unicorns,” the conman remarked coldly. “And you know what? I’ll mock it all I want; it’s my TV room.”

“It’s my house!” the author argued, clearly angry by this point. However, he did make something of an attempt to calm down by letting out an evening sigh as he relinquished his brother’s hand and instead pulled his bag of many-sided die out instead. “Listen, Stanley, did it ever occur to you that if you joined us, you might have fun?”

“What?” Stan scoffed, clearly caught off guard by this offer. Despite his brief surprise regarding it however, he was quick to reject it, refusing to let his brother have his way, which, as far as he was concerned, always seemed to be the case. “Now you listen to me!” the conman began, snatching the bag right out of the author’s hand. The bag that, as both Ford and Dipper knew, contained something potentially very dangerous inside. “As long as I live I will never-”

“G-Grunkle Stan!” Dipper attempted to warn, though by this point Stan was far too incensed to really listen.

“Ever-”

“Stanley! Don’t!” Ford gasped in alarm as he saw the conman raise the bag up high.

“Play your smartypants nerd game!” Stan finished his harsh proclamation by throwing the bag down onto the ground hard. Unfortunately, out of it rolled a plastic black box, and out of that rolled a glowing die with ever-changing sides.

The infinity-sided die.

For a single, anxious moment, the die was still in motion as it rolled across the carpeted floor, but once it finally came to a stop, it did so on a symbol that had only just appeared: the outline of a powerful wizard. And, just as Ford had said would happen, the die’s power instantly brought its outcome to life. In a flash of blinding light, four mystical figures materialized right out of the box art of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, brought to life and to reality in front of the shocked group who could do nothing more than watch as this impossibility unfolded right before their eyes. The assemblage of characters consisted of a massive golden griffon, a lumbering, bulky ogre, a attractive, bow-wielding elf, and finally, a cackling, bearded magician, clearly the leader of the crew as he spoke up first.

“Mortals of dimension 514÷Y! Kneel before me and-” the wizard interupted himself to roll his own die to see what threat he should dole out. “Snivel! I am Probabilitor! The greatest wizard in all of mathology! Give or take an error of 0.4.”

“Eh? Is this… normal?” Stan asked, aptly confused.

“Probabilitor?” Pearl also questioned, bewildered in a different way. “As in the one from the game? How is this even possible? Stanford, what did that die of yours do?!”

“That’s a… long story that there may or may not be time to explain all the details of later,” Ford said, his manner stiff and defensive as he kept a hand tucked away inside his trench coat. Just in case.

“Uh, are you here to send us on the quest of a lifetime because we’re the smartest players you’ve ever met?” Dipper asked the intruding wizard, hoping that his intentions weren’t as sinister as his sudden appearance came across.

“You are the smartest players I’ve ever met!” Probabilitor acknowledged with a sinister grin. “That’s why I’m going to eat your brains to gain your intelligence! Its what I do.”

“It’s his thing,” the wizard’s ogre companion added pointedly.

As everyone reacted to this news with alarmed surprise, Probabilitor took advantage of the moment as he ordered his mythical cohorts into action. “By the power of math, seize them!”

“Your math is no match for me gun, you idiot!” Ford retorted, finally pulling out the powerful laser gun he kept tucked away inside his coat. The author readily took aim, paying no mind to Pearl as she summoned her spear beside him or Dipper as he discreetly slipped away to retrieve something, fortunately without the wizard taking notice.

“Math ray!” Probabilitor shouted, a burst of mathematical power shooting out from his staff. The blast was more than enough to knock the gun clean out of Ford’s hands, leaving him essentially defenseless and opening things up for Pearl to take charge.

“Looks like I have to come to your rescue yet again, Stanford,” the white Gem remarked confidently as she rushed forward. She swung her spear widely, aiming for Probabilitor, though before her strike could land, Pearl suddenly found herself heavily pushed to the ground and pinned there by the griffon and its large, sharp talons. Her spear fell out of her hand and disappeared in its usual burst of sparkles, and with her arms as restrained as they were, summoning another one was nigh impossible.

“You were saying?” Ford remarked much more harshly than he had intended to, though given the circumstances, such stress was reasonable enough.

However, before either the author, the white Gem, or anyone else for that matter could try to thwart Probabilitor’s intentions, Dipper suddenly dashed forward seemingly out of nowhere, the Ancient Sea Blade tight in his grip. Ford in particular was rather startled to see his young nephew not only wielding such a weapon, but to see him running headfirst into obvious danger with a fearless battle cry. Unfortunately, much like Pearl, Dipper’s valiant attempt to cut the hostile wizard was ultimately put to a swift end as Probabilitor lashed out, a burst of his mysterious, dangerous magic spiraling right towards the sword-wielding boy.

“Dipper!” Mabel cried fearfully, though luckily, her brother reacted accordingly. At just the right moment, Dipper twisted his sword in front of him, pulling off a rather risky block that only worked to partially protect him. The Ancient Sea Blade took the brunt of the hit as Dipper was knocked back, and in practically an instant, the wizard’s magic destroyed the elegant sword, causing it to explode in an array of sparkles and mathematical symbols until nothing was left of it at all.

“Enough of this!” Probabilitor exclaimed hotly, pointing his staff in a commanding gesture as the griffon spread its wings and quickly worked to gather Pearl, Ford, and Dipper in hits talons. “I’m not here to play games!” With this, the wizard sent another blast of magic out, this one towards the nearest wall of the shack, which he easily blew a massive hole into. With an insane cackle, Probabilitor flew out through the hole, his band of companions following right behind with their captive trio in tow. “Now to the forest, for the ultimate game!”

“Oh no! Dipper! Pearl! Mr. Ford!” Steven cried worriedly as he rushed up to the hole along with Mabel as they both watched in dismay as they all disappeared into the forest, out of sight and out of reach.

“So…” Grenda spoke up after a beat of worried silence. “The room’s free now. Who wants to watch Ducktective and Dogcopter?” Another moment passed, this one much more awkward as Steven and Mabel looked to her in appalled disbelief at such a callous suggestion. “Nobody? Oh well! More couch for Grenda!”

“Oh, this is really bad,” Mabel said, both her tone and expression very fretful. “That crazy wizard is gonna eat Dipper and Ford’s brains! And… Pearl’s? I think? Isn’t that technically her gem?”

“W-we have to save them!” Steven interjected with a much more pertinent concern.

“Eh, maybe let ‘em get a couple of bites in Ford’s brain first,” Stan remarked, leaning against the side of the hole casually. “Even things out smart-wise.”

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel scolded, nowhere near as accepting of this alarming kidnapping as he seemed to be.

“Alright, alright,” the conman quickly folded upon meeting his niece’s troubled manner. “I guess if we have no other choice, we’ll go on a… ugh, epic wizard quest.”

“Yay!” the trio of kids exclaimed in unified excitement, all more than ready for such a harrowing adventure if it meant saving their family and friends.

“Now before we hit the road, everyone grab a weapon,” Stan said, still far from enthused from having to go on this journey. After all, he wasn’t particularly excited about having to rescue Ford again, only to no doubt be denied proper thanks once more.

Everyone easily found whatever they had on hand to use as a weapon in their quest. Steven already had one on hand in his shield, as did Stan as he pulled out the baseball bat he kept tucked away in the porch couch’s cushions. On impulse, Mabel grabbed a rake, though Grenda was by far the most heavily equipped as she hoisted a recliner up, more than ready to use it as a weapon if needed.

“We’re coming for you, Dipper!” Mabel boldly proclaimed as everyone prepared to set off on their daring, magical rescue mission. “And Grunkle Ford! And Pearl! And possibly that hot elf, if he’s got anything to do with this.”

“Let’s go!” Steven exclaimed, leading the way as they all rushed headlong into the forest, unsure of what they’d encounter on their journey, but ready to face it all the same.

Probabilitor and his companions had wasted no time at all in setting up a camp deep in the magical forests of Gravity Falls. While the elf and the griffon stood guard in the event of any unwanted intruders, the wizard took the time to taunt his three captives, all of whom were attempting to struggle out of the rather tight bonds that kept them restrained to the large tree in the middle of the clearing.

“With each brain I eat, I shall increase my enchantelligence!” Probabilitor chortled as he used a magical tape measurer to get a count on Ford, Dipper, and Pearl’s heads.

“If my hands were free, I’d break every part of your face!” the author threatened fiercely.

“Not if I get to it first!” Pearl added just as sharply as she sent the wizard a cold glare.

“Squabble all you want,” Probabilitor chuckled darkly. “Either way, the time has come! Hot elf! Ready the brain-cooking pot!”

The elf let out an exasperated sigh, flipping his hood off to reveal his luminous silver hair. “Yes, Probabilitor,” he groaned, rolling his eyes as he took aim at the nearby caldron and ignited it with a flaming arrow.

“Haha! According to my calculations, your brains shall be a delicious part of my balanced wizard breakfast,” the wizard concluded to his captives with a triumphant smirk. “Or lunch. Or dinner. Or whatever mealtime it currently is.”

“Hmph, then clearly it seems that you’ve miscalculated,” Pearl retorted, turning her nose up haughtily. “Even if your ridiculous plan succeeded, you’d only have two brains to snack on anyway since I’m a Gem. Which means, I don’t have a brain.” A beat of curious silence passed at this as both Ford and Dipper sent Pearl questioning looks before she realized what she had just said. “Wait… I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Oh believe me, I’m well aware of your relative brainlessness,” Probabilitor remarked with a knowing grin.

“Again, not what I meant!”

“Which is why I plan on grinding up that pretty little gemstone of yours into the perfect seasoning for brains à la carte!” the wizard finished before breaking down into yet another round of wild laughter.

“Well that’s… dark,” Dipper noted exchanging a concerned look with Pearl.

“You know, I’d almost rather be back at the temple, moping about how upset Garnet is with me…” the white Gem groaned, slumping against the ropes restraining her to the tree. That is, until she remembered just how unbearably tense things actually were between her and the Gem leader in light of what she had done. “Then again… maybe not…”

Though the mystical forest was quite dense, Mabel, Steven, Stan, and Grenda didn’t have a particularly hard time finding their way through it, mostly since they were easily able to follow the trail of griffon feathers that had unintentionally been left behind. So far, the group hadn’t encountered any obstacles or threats along the way, but even so, they were all still on high alert in the event that they did, their makeshift weapons at the ready to defend themselves from any dangers Probabilitor might put in their path.

“We must be getting close,” Stan noted, flinching as he slapped a past on his back. “These fairy bites are getting more frequent.”

“H-hey! Look! Listen!” the now squished fairy cried in pain as she lay crushed against the conman’s shoulder in a pile of glitter.

“I hope we’re not too late,” Steven said fretfully. “I’m not really sure how I’d be able to go back to the temple and explain to Garnet and Amethyst that Pearl got eaten by a crazy board game wizard. A lot of bad things have been happening lately, but I have a feeling that would probably take the cake…”

“Halt!” The group came to an abrupt stop as the massive, threatening ogre suddenly emerged from the nearby greenery, stomping down in front of them and barring the path ahead. “Yon interlopers are trespassing on the ancient forest of Probabilitor the wizard! If ye wish to pass, first, ye must complete seven unworldly quests, each more difficult than the-”

“NO!” Grenda suddenly shouted, brutally hitting the unsuspecting ogre with her heavy chair. The monster fell to the ground with a mighty thud, easily defeated and apparently unconscious, though based on his lack of breathing, he could have possibly been worse off than that.

“Is he… dead?” Mabel asked, poking the downed ogre with her rake.

“He’s magic, sweetie, I’m sure he’s fine,” Stan assured casually enough before turning to Grenda with a serious whisper. “There are no cops in the forest, we take this to our graves.”

Grenda nodded in agreement with this resolve, but even so, Steven and Mabel pressed onward, still clearly worried about their primary mission. “Well… I guess that’s one way to clear a path,” the young Gem noted as they passed by the supposedly unconscious ogre. “Maybe not the best way, but still, a way.”

It was clear from the increasing frequency of Probabilitor’s manic chuckles that his preparations for cooking his captives’ brains were nearly complete. Unfortunately though, despite their skill in Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, Dipper, Ford, and Pearl had yet to think of a way out of their very real plight, one that could very well cost them all their lives if they didn’t escape from it soon.

“W-what do we do? What do we do?!” Dipper asked in a sharp, panicked whisper, hating how relatively defenseless all three of them were in this situation.

“Stop thinking, Dipper!” Ford retorted, trying to be as calm as possible, something that Pearl also tried to maintain, despite her own dread in this tight spot. “The more wrinkly your brain gets, the more he’ll want to eat it!”

“And now, a little math problem,” Probabilitor said as he stepped up to his trio of captives, a hungry grin claiming his face. “When I subtract your brains from your skulls,” he began, tapping both Dipper and Ford’s heads with his staff. “Add salt,” he lightly poked Pearl’s gemstone at this, causing the white Gem to cringe from the unexpected vibration. “And divide your families, what’s the remainder?”

“Your butt!”

“What?” the wizard asked, startled as he turned to face this unexpected voice. “My butt isn’t part of this particular equation!”

“And neither are we!” Mabel boldly proclaimed as her, Steven, Stan, and Grenda suddenly jumped out of the bushes, all of them still wielding their makeshift weapons brazenly.

“But here we are!” Steven chimed in before waving to the trio tied to the tree. “Hi, Dipper! Hi, Pearl! Hi, Mr. Ford!”

“Well, at least someone came to rescue us…” Pearl noted, though her tone alone conveyed her uncertainty about the group’s effectiveness in actually saving them.

“Drat! How did you get past my one guard?!” Probabilitor scowled, gripping his staff tightly. “Very well… There is one way you can save your family. You must defeat me in Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons: Real Life Edition!”

With a wild cackle, the wizard raised his staff, magic pouring out of it as a large, ornate game board, one that floated just a few feet off the ground just as Probabilitor himself had begun to.

“What? Oh come on!” Stan groaned, knowing that him trying to avoid having to play the complicated, rather boring game was what started this mess in the first place.

“I choose my characters…” Probabilitor continued, snapping his fingers to create three miniaturized, identical ogres on the game board. “Vs… yours!” Upon another burst of mathematical magic, the wizard pointed to his trio of captives, all of whom disappeared from their spot against the tree as he did. They reappeared an instant later, shrunken down themselves as they stood upon Probabilitor’s outstretched palm, unanimously startled by this unexpected shift. However, their size hadn’t been the only thing to change; each of them was now clad in the archaic attire befitting Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons characters, with Dipper and Ford both dressed in earthy adventuring clothes while Pearl had received something of a sparse knight’s armor.

“Ah! My ears! They’re so pointy!” Ford exclaimed, flicking his now elfish ears.

“T-there better be something protective under this tunic,” Dipper remarked before briefly turning around to check. “Oh no, there isn’t!”

“I don’t know what you two are complaining about,” Pearl smirked as she looked over the crimson cape her armor came equipped with. “I could get used to this…”

“Aw, you guys look so adorable!” Steven gasped with delight upon seeing the tiny trio.

“I know, right?” Mabel agreed just as brightly. “Makes me wish I had me camera on me to get a pic of how cute you guys are in your little fantasy outfits!”

“Ok, seriously, you guys, now is not the time!” Dipper scolded, sending a petulant look up at them.

“I’m with the kid, can’t we just arm wrestle or something?” Stan asked, far from enthused.

“Come on, this game is a lot of fun!” Probabilitor urged. “I even had my mom pack me a lunch,” he continued, pulling some apple slices out of his paper bag lunch. “Ew, apple slices? I’ll eat you last.”

“Ugh, just make with the rules already, ugly,” the conman rolled his eyes as him, Mabel, and Steven took a seat on the other side of the game board.

“The game is a battle royale,” the wizard began to explain. “We help out characters by casting spells determined by rolls of the dice. If you win, I’ll go back to my own dimension.”

“Hooray!” Steven and Mabel chimed in unison, hoping for such a peaceful outcome.

“But if I win, I eat their brains/gem!” Probabilitor grinned as he let Dipper, Ford, and Pearl down into the game board itself.

“Well,” Pearl remarked, crossing her arms. “That certainly seems like a risky gamble that only an absolute fool would-”

“Deal!” Stan exclaimed daringly.

“Oh boy…” Dipper sighed as Ford and Pearl shook their heads, all three of them quite concerned about their fate in what would no doubt be a dangerous game.

“Then let the game… BEGIN!” Probabilitor proclaimed, raising his hand before bringing it down and letting his dice roll out of it. The wizard landed a 13, giving him the perfect opportunity to dole out his first move. “Attack!” he ordered his trio of ogres as large, spiked clubs appeared in each of their hands. The creatures rushed towards Dipper, Ford, and Pearl, more than happy to swing their weapons at the group as they narrowly managed to dodge the heavy strikes.

“Oh come on!” Pearl exclaimed in severe annoyance as she tried to summon her spear, only for nothing to emerge from her Gem as a result of Probabilitor’s spell. “As if this entire thing couldn’t get any more aggravating!”

“Oh no!” Steven exclaimed worriedly as he watched this chaos unfold across the game board. “We have to help them!”

“W-what do we do? What are our moves?” Stan asked just as frantically.

“There are no moves!” Dipper shouted up to them as he barely managed to jump out of the way of one of the ogre’s bats. “You make them up!”

“What? Really?” the conman asked, surprised.

“But wait, isn’t this game super complicated?” Mabel asked, just as confused.

“No!” Pearl informed as though it was obvious. “Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons is actually quite simple once you get the hang of it!”

“That’s what I tried to tell you!” Ford added just as intently. “This game involves math, yes, but also risk, enthusiasm, and imagination!”

“Risk?” Stan asked as a smile slowly started to spread across his face.

“Enthusiasm?!” Steven asked, already quite pumped up.

“Imagination?” Mabel finished with a cheerful gasp. “Grunkle Stan, make something up! It’s just like lying!”

“Uh, then I cast, um… shield of… shielding?” Stan ventured, rolling the die and miraculously getting a 14. It was just enough to counter Probabilitor’s roll, and as such, a large, magical shield materialized in front of Dipper, Pearl, and Ford. The ogres’ clubs bounced cleanly off its sturdy surface as the trio crowded behind it, fully protected from any and all harm. “Ha! We’re doing it!” the conman exclaimed in triumph.

That triumph was short lived, however, as Probabilitor quickly made his next roll to cancel Stan’s out. “Shield of shielding reversal spell!” he shouted, and just like that, the magical shield disappeared into thin air, leaving the trio defenseless yet again. They scattered as one of the ogres brought his club down, but fortunately, Steven wasn’t about to leave them unprotected for long.

“I cast, uh… Crazy Fast Lightning Roller Skates!” the young Gem exclaimed, coming up with something off the top of his head as he rolled. Almost as soon as he did, Dipper, Pearl, and Ford all received their own pairs of electrically charged skates, ones that instantly propelled them forward at lighting-fast speeds. The skates were more than enough to get them past the slow, lumbering ogres and their bulky weapons, giving them ample space to prepare themselves to go on the offence as opposed to defense.

“Hot Flamey Sword!” Mabel proclaimed as sharp, fiery swords materialized in the trio’s hands. “Super Hot Flamey Sword!” she added a moment later, and each of the blades extended and the flames surrounding them grew even hotter and brighter.

As the swords solidified themselves, the trio skidded to a stop, their electrified skates still at the ready to send them zooming forward once more. The ogres charged towards them, their expressions fierce as they raised their clubs once again, ready to attack. Only this time, their assault would not go encountered.

“Dipper, stay behind me and Pearl!” Ford ordered his nephew, concerned for his safety amidst this massive beasts. “We’ll handle-” The author was cut off by Dipper’s own battle cry as he swiftly skated forward, flames bursting from his blade as he lashed out in a bold, fast move as he zoomed past one of the ogres. His attack struck true as the creature let out a sharp cry, disappearing into a puff of smoke mere seconds after the flaming sword sliced through it.

“Excellent form, Dipper!” Pearl exclaimed to her pupil brightly. “I can see you’ve been practicing!”

“Thanks!” Dipper called back as he prepared to take on one of the othe ogres. “I have!”

“H-how… where did he learn how to fight like that?” Ford asked, rather amazed at his nephew’s impressive skill with a blade.

“Where do you think?” Pearl asked with a proud smile. “I taught him everything he knows. Now, come on. Dipper can certainly handle himself against those brutes, but it just wouldn’t be fair to let him have all the fun, now would it?”

The author didn’t get much of a chance to respond as the white Gem hurried on ahead, jumping into the fray alongside her pupil. Ford wasn’t far behind and Steven, Mabel, and Stan cheered them on as they worked together to take out the remaining two ogres in record time, much to Probabilitor’s fury.

“No! Drat you! You’ll never outrun my-” the wizard paused as he rolled the dice, grinning wickedly as he made his next move. “Ogre-nado!” With this spell, a massive, spiraling tornado struck up, disembodied ogre heads flying around it as it chased after the trio and blew their swords away. “Ha! It is what it sounds like!” Probabilitor guffawed, watching with twisted delight as the trio ran from the monstrous storm.

“I cast: CENTAURTAUR!” Mabel shouted out of the blue, tossing the dice down onto the board to conjure up a rather nightmarish creature: a centaur with another horse for its head.

“G-goodness! That’s… alarming…” Pearl remarked, rather put off by such a bizarre amalgamation.

“Mabel, I am so confused and so proud right now,” Stan said, sending his niece a bewildered, but warm smile.

“Come on!” Dipper shouted to Pearl and Ford as they all ran for the centaurtaur. Though it was a bit awkward getting onto its double backs, they managed to get a good hold onto the creature long enough for it to carry them away from the approaching ogre-nado as Stan, Mabel, and Steven cheered them on all the while. As the centaurtaur passed into a smaller chamber on the board, both it and the ogre-nado abruptly fell apart, leaving Dipper, Ford, and Pearl safe once more. Or so they thought.

No sooner had the trio picked themselves up off the ground than they suddenly found themselves all pinned to the wall once more, this time by a large, grotesque winged creature with several limbs, tentacles, and two intensely fanged mouths. “Haha, yes!” Probabilitor laughed over his latest move. “I was saving the worst for last!”

“The Impossibeast!” Ford exclaimed in apt surprise. “Hey, I thought they banned this character!”

“Think again!” the wizard grinned deviously. “I’m playing the controversial 1991-1992 edition!”

“W-well this is ok!” Steven reassured as he prepared to roll the dice again. “We’ll just come up with some new weapons and-”

“It’s not that simple,” Pearl interjected fretfully, struggling to break free from the Impossibeast’s iron grip. “From what I remember, this monster is the most powerful creature in the entire game!”

“He can only be defeated by rolling a perfect 38,” Ford added, his tone just as grave. “But the odds of that are-”

“Hey, long odds are what you want when you’re a world class gambler,” Stan cut in with a sly smirk as he took the dice and shook them in his hands. “Alright, Stan, you can do this… Papa needs a new pair of… twins!” Wirth this, the conman tossed the die onto the board, the others taking in a collective deep breath as they hoped that luck would be with him, as the entire game depended on this one singular roll. In an instant that seemed like ages, the die struck the board, rolling across it before finally, fortunately landing on that sought after 38.

“NO!” Probabilitor cried, dumbfounded by disbelief over this effective turn of the tide.

“Ha! Sorry, nerd wizard!” Stan laughed in triumph as Dipper, Pearl, and Ford all let out a shared sigh of relief. “But all your smarts are no match for dumb luck!”

“We cast DEATH MUFFINS!” Mabel and Steven proclaimed in excitable unison, knowing that this move would certainly be for the win. At this, glimmering muffins with an explosive edge to them appeared in each of the trios’ free hands. They didn’t even have to think twice about what to do with them as they simultaneously launched them into the Impossibeast’s wide-open maw, watching with anticipation as the creature swallowed all three of them whole. The effect was almost immediate, for mere seconds later, the death muffins exploded, taking the Impossibeast out along with them in a blinding flash of light.

“Yes!” Stan, Mabel, and Steven cheered in elated unison at this hard-earned win as the game concluded. In a flash, the board disappeared and in its place, Dipper, Ford, and Pearl all reappeared, restored to their normal sizes and clothing with only non-explosive death muffins remaining. An air of celebration rang throughout the group, especially as Steven and Mabel both caught Dipper off guard in a sudden, but welcome hug, glad to have finally rescued him as well as Pearl and Ford.

“The game is, like, over,” the hot elf remarked, shutting the rule book amidst Grenda hugging him tightly, as she had been doing for most of the game. “Excelci-whatever.”

“No!” Probabilitor cried in defeat as him and his companions began to dematerialize. “I’m returning to my own realm! I’m turning into pure math! What are the ooooooooddds?!” The wizard’s final cry hung on the air as he disappeared into equations and grids until nothing remained of him or his wicked intent at all.

“Hmph, serves him right,” Pearl remarked with a satisfied smirk as Steven caught her legs in a sudden embrace, which she gladly returned. “Wanting to crush my gem is one thing, but wanting to use it as a mere seasoning? That was simply absurd.”

“Grunkle Stan, that was amazing!” Dipper exclaimed with a wide smile. “How’d you know you would win?”

“Heh, a gambler never reveals his secrets,” then conman winked as he retrieved the 38 sided die, which he had happened to stick a bit of gum to the side of in order to ensure his perfect 38 roll.

“Man, that really was fun for ages 8 to 80!” Mabel noted with a grin. “Or a million. Or however old you guys are.”

“Yeah, I wish we had tried actually playing the game earlier,” Steven agreed. “I didn’t know what we were missing out on! Electric skates and centaurtaurs and death muffins… What more could anyone want?!”

“Indeed…” Pearl chuckled, though her smile faded somewhat as she turned to Ford. “Er, um… Stanford? I, uh… well I just wanted to say… thank you. Things have been rather… difficult for me lately, but… your offer to pick up our old past time again gave me a much-needed distraction and a reminder of how much fun we used to have together back in the day. I have to admit… I missed this.”

“As did I,” Ford returned her warm grin with complete sincerity. “By the way… I’ve heard about… what happened between you and Garnet. And if there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all, then please, don’t hesitate to ask.”

The white Gem sighed somewhat sadly at this, wrapping her arms around herself as she looked down briefly. “I’m not sure if there’s anything anyone can do but… I appreciate the thought.”

“Uh, hey, Pearl?” Dipper cut in after this exchange, somewhat hesitant as he averted his teacher’s gaze. “I’m, uh… sorry about the Ancient Sea Blade. I know I promised I’d be carefully with it, but I guess I was kinda reckless back at the shack, and I did what you always tell me not to do in a fight and I acted too quickly and… well, you saw what happened to it…”

“Oh, Dipper,” Pearl laughed once more, her tone gentle and reassuring as she placed a hand on her young pupil’s shoulder. “I’m not angry about the Ancient Sea Blade. I’m just that you’re safe. And that you managed to fend off those ogres as skillfully as you did.”

“Well, I learned from the best,” Dipper shrugged, glad that the white Gem didn’t take the loss of her sword harshly whatsoever.

“You certainly did,” Pearl smiled proudly. “Though of course, this means we’ll have to outfit you with a new sword at some point, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, right?”

Dipper happily nodded in agreement with this, though unbeknownst to him or Pearl, Ford was already busy at work pondering on what the white Gem had just said. “A new sword…” the author muttered to himself, an idea striking him as he thought of what would be an excellent way to show his nephew his genuine appreciation.

“Y’know…” Stan began somewhat sheepishly as he garnished his nephew’s attention next. “I’m sorry to you too, kiddo, for making fun of your game. Sure, it might be too nerdy for me, but its just the right amount of nerdy for you and my brother. And Pearl, I guess, but we all already knew she was a huge nerd.”

“Oh wow, thank you, Stan,” Pearl deadpanned, though all the same, she had a smile on her face.

“Anyway,” the conman continued after sending the white Gem a brief cursory look. “If you wanna hang out with Ford sometimes, I won’t get in your way.”

“Actually, after all that, I think I could use a little mindless fun,” Dipper remarked with a small laugh, more than ready to rest after such a harrowing adventure.

“Guys! We can still watch the second showing of the Dogcopter/Ducktective crossover!” Grenda interjected boisterously. “It’s not too late! Now let’s GO!”

Sure enough, everyone made it back to the Mystery Shack just in time to catch the start of the crossover’s second airing. Steven, Mabel, Grenda, Dipper, Stan, and Soos all crowded into the den, disregarding the hole still present in the wall as they watched Ducktective and Dogcopter get into a heated argument as the third act of the special began.

“Oh no! Dogcopter and Ducktective shouldn’t fight!” Steven cried fretfully as he watched the animals’ subtitled quarrel. “They were getting along so well, what happened?!”

“The usual late in the game misunderstanding,” Soos shook his head disapprovingly. “Ya see it all the time in just about everything these days.”

“Ugh, I can’t believe they’d do something so cliché and predictable!” Mabel huffed, unwittingly spilling her snacks all over Stan’s lap. “We waited so long for this?!”

“What a rip off!” Grenda exclaimed, far from pleased.

“Seriously, what kinda two-bit hack wrote this junk?” Stan asked, though even despite the collective anger in the room, they all still watched the rest of the special intently, all of them secretly curious to see where it might lead.

Later that evening, after the thoughts of insane mathematical wizards and zany animal crossovers had been put to rest, Dipper ended up finding himself down in the basement lab once more as per Ford’s request. While everyone else had been watching the crossover, the author had apparently been collaborating with Pearl on something, but whatever it was seemed to be a surprise that Ford didn’t reveal, at least not immediately. Instead, he greeted his nephew warmly and presented him with the infinity sided die once more before sealing it tight in its case and locking it away in one of the many compartments of the basement’s large glass cabinet.

“Well, this ought to be safe and sound now,” Ford concluded with a satisfied grin. “It’ll be here if you ever need it.”

“Really?” Dipper asked with a frown. “Even after it got us into that huge mess earlier?”

“Eh, we both got carried away,” the author remarked with a hint of warmth in his tone. “I guess we’d both gone a while without a friend.”

Dipper couldn’t help but smile upon hearing this, feeling genuinely grateful for the solidarity and camaraderie that had been unexpectedly given to him by none other than the author of the journals himself. In light of the apparent hints of distance he had been feeling between himself and Mabel and Steven as of late, he appreciated the chance to be in the company of someone who not only shared similar interests to him, but truly respected him for his intelligence and verve. And in the end, not only had he gotten what he had wanted in finding a place for himself under the author’s wizened wing, but he had managed to form a solid, comfortable bond with his newfound great uncle. A bond that he had no intentions of every trying to break any time soon.

“Speaking of which…” Ford continued after a beat of silence, a small, sly smile spreading across his face. “I must say I was quite impressed with your surprising ability with a blade that you demonstrated earlier.”

“Oh, w-well, its nothing,” Dipper remarked somewhat bashfully, not really liking to play up those aforementioned abilities too frequently. “I’m still sort of a beginner after all…”

“Well, from what Pearl told me, you’ve progressed marvelously,” the author said, now holding something he had retrieved from his desk behind his back. “Which is why I asked her to help me put a little… something together for you. And the result of our craftsmanship is something I think you just might like.” Ford could no longer contain his full smile as he held out what he had been hiding for his nephew to finally see. Even upon a first glance, Dipper let out a surprised gasp at the sight of the beautiful falchion sword laid across the author’s outstretched hands, its blade covered by a simple sheath as its hilt presented a comfortable-looking grip and a curvaceous, well-designed guard. Ford noticed his nephew’s hesitance in taking such an exquisite gift, which was why he let out a small chuckle before nodding him on ahead. “Go on, my boy, take it. It is yours after all.”

Dipper mostly let go of his hesitance at this, finally taking the sword and carefully unsheathing it to find that its sharp, metallic blade contained hints of intricate technology to it, with bright lines of circuitry running across it in neat, organized lines. “Whoa…” he mused, his eyes wide with amazement as he looked over it. “It’s… amazing…”

“It certainly is, and in more than just looks too,” Ford remarked proudly, his hands behind his back. “Do you see that small dial on the pommel?” He pointed to said dial, which was divided between four vibrant colors: red, blue, yellow, and green, with the first of those being the one it was apparently set on. “Press down on it and see what happens.”

Curious, Dipper did so, only to gasp in alarm as the circuitry on the sword suddenly lit up, the blade igniting itself in bright, hot flames. “W-whoa!” he exclaimed, holding the fiery sword far out from him. “I-is this supposed to be happening?!”

“Yes, it works exactly as intended!” Ford chimed as he reached to turn the knob to the next setting. As soon as he did, the fire quelled itself, the blade glowing blue as its heat was replaced with a bitterly cold aura of misty frost. “You could say that I was a bit inspired by our rather… fantastical adventure earlier today when designing this. Those ‘flamey swords’ Mabel came up with in particular helped me envision the direction I wanted to go in with this invention. As did Steven’s ‘electric skates’.” With another turn of the dial, the sword burst into bright yellow sparks, lightning cackling from it, but fortunately never leaving the immediate surface of the blade itself. Ford turned the dial one last time, shifting the sword’s color to green as a powerful gust of wind, almost akin to a controlled tornado, struck up around the blade before it ultimately dissipated into nothing as the author pressed the pommel again, shutting the sword down. “It was quite an interesting project to take on in such a short notice, but I think I did a rather exemplary job, if I do say so myself,” Ford continued brightly. “The modifications were entirely of my design, but I do have Pearl to thank for giving me the base sword, as well as thinking up a name for it: the Sword of Seasons. Fitting, isn’t it?”

“The Sword of Seasons…” Dipper repeated with a smile as he looked to his new blade with immense satisfaction before properly sheathing it. “Yes, it is. And thank you so much, Great Uncle Ford. This thing is seriously so cool!”

“Yes, well, I’m glad I could equip you with a new one after what happened today,” Ford said, still beaming. “And of course, I’m sure you’ll use it wisely, so it was more than worth the trouble.” A beat of warmth passed between the pair, one that the author felt was far too short lived as he took the smallest glance at the curtain-covered window behind him. Behind which were secrets that he knew he finally had to come clean about, at least to someone. “Dipper… can I tell you something?” he ventured, his manner turning serious, almost grave even.

“Y-yeah, of course,” Dipper nodded, noting the author’s sudden shift in behavior, his own shifting right along with it.

“You asked me what I was working on earlier. Well…” Ford began, hesitating for a moment before finally pulling back the curtain to reveal the portal on the other side of it. Or rather, what little now remained of it. “I dismantled the portal. To be honest, I should have done this from the very moment Rose told me to years ago… An interdimensional gateway is too dangerous for the world it feeds into. That’s why I was mad at Stan for using it. He saved me, but as I feared, the instability of the machine created this:” The author pulled out a small, spherical glass globe, its appearance fortified but rather unassuming. What was contained within the globe, however, was much more fascinating: a formless, shapeless cloud of what almost looked to be the radiant depths of space itself, swirling within its petite containment unit without any sort of rhyme or reason. It was in a state of constant change, its glow casting light throughout the dimly lit basement as it seemed to pulsate with an unknown power. A power that felt both intriguing and catastrophic all at once. “Its an interdimensional rift,” Ford explained, keeping his voice low as he held onto the base of the glob tightly. “I’ve contained it for now, but its incredibly dangerous, which means it must remain safe and secure and most of all, secret. Dipper, I don’t want you to tell anyone about this. Not Stan, not the Gems, not even your sister. Understand?”

For a moment, the most Dipper could do was remain silent in light of the incredibly heavy weight Ford had just unexpectedly put upon his shoulders. Sure enough, the author had let him in on an incredibly guarded secret, one that could, as far as he knew, put the town, maybe even the entire world at risk if not well kept. But to keep such a secret from those he trusted most, to hide something so monumental and so important from his family, his friends, his sister? If he was perfectly honest with himself, Dipper wasn’t sure if he could withstand that kind of pressure to uphold such a vow of untold silence. And yet… he knew that he would ultimately have to. The amount of genuine trust and reliance Ford was placing in him, to tell him and no one else, not even his old research partners, the Gems, about this rift could not be betrayed. In fact, Dipper refused to let himself betray that trust out of sheer conviction alone. It wasn’t a matter of trying to prove to the author that he could handle this; it was a matter of protecting this incredible important, incredibly fragile object before him. And as far as he knew, the only way he could really protect it, was to remain silent about it, just as Ford had said.

“I—uh, o-of course,” Dipper nodded a moment later, putting as much resolve into his tone as he could as he met the author’s expectant gaze squarely.

Ford nodded in acceptance at this, letting out a small sigh of relief as he pulled the rift a bit closer to him. “Thank you,” he said with genuine gratitude. “In my time, I’ve made many powerful enemies, but I trust you with this secret. Now, get to bed. I have much research to do. And as I said before, take care with that new sword of yours!”

“I will,” Dipper promised just as sincerely, gripping the Sword of Seasons tight to his chest as he turned to head back upstairs, as if it alone could protect the immense secret he had just sworn to keep. “Goodnight, Great Uncle Ford.”

“Goodnight, Dipper,” Ford called back with a warm smile, one that disappeared as soon as his nephew left the room. The author let out a tired sigh, looking down to the rift in his hands once again, its relative weightlessness seemingly making it feel all the more heavy in a way. He knew he ran a risk telling just about anyone at all about this dimensional tear that could just as easily rip its way through existence itself, but he firmly did believe that Dipper would keep this secret well. Just as he readily believed Rose could have if she were still around today, though Ford figured he’d just have to make to with whom he had.

So, the author put the rift away, tucking it safely back in its hidden place in the compartment at his desk, hoping to get some peace of mind with it put out of his sight. But even so, the rift continued radiating its hauntingly beautiful glow, its ever-shifting clusters of stars carrying the fate of existence itself upon them. An existence that could just as easily come to a violent, destructive end if it ever fell into the wrong hands…