You can now find Aina in the Dalshmarb Desert
Aina in: The Retem People
She wants to talk about the people in Retem.

I Think They’re Great
What Do You Mean?

If you tell her I Think They’re Great, she agrees. When we first arrived, she thought everyone was super scary, they had too much a ‘only the strong survive’ vibe or ‘might makes right’. They were so uptight when Renus Retem was attacking, acting like they couldn’t be bothered by outsiders…but now that she got to know everyone and made the effort, they’re really kind and helped her with desert survival tips. Which enemies, where’s food, and more. But, they’re asking about Aelio because they haven’t been there but are interested…they’re too busy fighting to have much time for anything else. But, they don’t brag, look out for each other, and help those in need. They talk about Nadereh a lot, they want to support her, they trust her to lead and respect her. They’re so united here. But, this makes me realize Aelio Town was like that…this place feels like it could be her new home town. She wants to contribute here too. The scene ends.

This collaborates well with the Retem citizens changing their views a bit now that everything isn't so dire. (Renus Retem being killed off in the plot)

Nadereh at the Graves
She’ll appear in the daytime at the grave yard, but it won’t be on the main map. She wants to talk, if its not an imposition, about the arduous battle. It’s not over yet, but we did reach a milestone in the endless battle against Renus Retem. So many people died in the struggle, if we’d continued alone without accepting help we would have been defeated. Retem long relied on own strength to solve own problems and never asked for help, being self sufficient…because they thought it was best. It was cut off from the outside world by sand, cliffs and mountains, so their perspective became limited as well. (The tunnel-paths between the continents ARE cannon and ARE acknowledged by the characters, so why doesn't anyone bring that up? Of course it's a game mechanic to work with what areas to load, but it is cannon that those 'barrier walls' exist between the continents) When the Trio arrived, everyone was skeptical, and some people said joining the Trio Battle would be dishonorable. It was because of these kind of opinions that she first refused the offer of Aelio, but looking back that was foolish to do. The Trio proved effective methods, risked it all in a far-away land and that made Jalil and Mohsen have a change of heart…and her too. So, she’s grateful.

We All Did It Together
It Was Manon Who Figured It Out

The 2^nd one is true of one facet, but without Nadereh’s actual singing, plus Jalil / Mohsen squads prepping the way AND the Trio it wouldn’t have gotten done. Manon can’t take all the credit here, even though she turned over a big key. We All Did It Together, so she says that’s the truth…but every time she comes here she feels a deep sense of shame, and the feeling won’t change. But now at least she can tell them that they’re victorious, and the struggles of the predecessor have made us what we are today, and in the end this victory is all of ours. They didn’t die in vain. You can nod at this.
She feels her emotions when she sings are also transforming…but, there’s something she’s been meaning to ask. How did Manon know the Song of Mourning?

I Don’t Know
She Researches All Kinds of Things

Well well well, if a mystery isn’t spawned here. We can asssuuuume that this is part of her research but if you confess I Don’t Know she wants to ask her about it because it is so significant, there must be some reason she knew it. Now, she wants you to help her pay respects at the graves, and the scene ends.

Hadi in: Lower Maquead
This is actually a really good one. You can find him at the top of Rwh Maqead, looking down into the pit. He was asked by Aelio to investigate the interior, as well as do lots of things he’s never done before. He’s happy about this because he was always interested in it. Retem never did much about it because it was just ‘Renus Retem Lair’ so of course you couldn’t study anything there with a giant evil worm around all the time.
There are energy ‘plants’ that are even still working and powering the city. (So someone's run a power cord of some kind all the way from the Rwh Maqead to the Retem City?) They need no interaction and just work forever. That is such a feat, and so interesting. He then goes on to say there are Traces of Dolls around in the research for it too.

Traces, What Does That Mean?
What Kind of Something?

If you ask What Does That Mean?, he doesn’t know the details yet. The Aelio survey team found something connected to the Dolls in some of the facilities here. Everyone assumed the Dolls found the big pit and decided to inhabit it, but what if there’s a deeper relationship between the dolls and the buildings, then something’s fishy. But, hes just speculating…so he’ll let you know if he learns anything more. He feels its nice to find something to pique his interest as much as combat and music! In a better world, he might have been a research scientist…but one never knows which path fate will lead.
The scene ends.

This is the story piece that vanishes but then reappears due to a glitch with the Dozer interaction. (Hopefully a moot point if it is noticed and fixed) But, this is a good piece for the plot. The machinery in there was all obviously still mostly working, IS in fact human scaled (size of doors, size of stairs) which means the stuff wasn't built for Dolls to use. Traces of dolls stuff...someone was either researching them or something.
Bet:
We do find out what it was for as part of the plot in the future. Someone was either trying to make more dolls, or was melting dolls or stealing the technology from how they work to do whatever in the bottom of Rwh because it would be a difficult place to get to. If you're going to be clandestine and either make, melt, or steal from monsters that's a good place to do it.

Nadereh in Dance Practice
You can find Nadereh along the Galner Coast in the shade of some rocks getting frusterated at something. You somewhat startle her by showing up, and she says you’ve got skill for making yourself invisible.

What Are You Doing Here?
Are You Practicing Something?

If you ask Are You Practicing Something?
She says it’s her daily training, at her dance lesson. She no longer has a teacher…her family’s gift was the power of song but it’s not singing alone…song and dance combine to manifest true power is what Mother always taught her. Dancing though, was always a weak point with her…and her mother would scold her during the lessons. When she stopped singing, she stopped dancing too…but now that her singing works, she can’t neglect her dance. She’s making time to train daily…but it’s difficult to be watched at it. If she could only polish up her skills she could ask for feedback but…would you dance with her?

Um…I’m Not Much of a Dancer
I’d Rather Train For Battle Instead!

If you confess Not Much of a Dancer…she was only teasing about it, she needs to be certain to master it before she reveals her new song and dance…but when it comes, she wants you to be there. She’ll head out and says goodbye, but reminds you no peeking from behind a boulder. You nod and she goes away to practice in peace. The scene ends.

Manon is on the outer wall, using her mag and a tablet to look up things while looking over at the volcano of Stia, which can be seen in the distance. Aina calls you and says Manon isn’t responding because she’s been acting weird since Kvaris. Aina thinks she’s troubled about something, so if you see her, let her know she can talk about anything.

You can meet her on the outer wall, and Aina had the same idea because she arrives at the same time. Manon looks gloomy and asks if something’s wrong so Aina says is something troubleing you? She claims to be just ‘thinking’ but she’s so down about it. She says they learned so much about Falz in Lost Central, and now it’s ‘evolving’ further so it’ll be even stronger next time. Aina assures her that if we do it together, we can still do it. Manon agrees, saying Aina is so different now that she’s nolonger unsure…but even so, if we fight it people will die, its inevetible, and she’s afraid the war will bring greater destruction that what’s already happened.
Aina says she’s so kind…which surprises her—but Liu Lin interrupts that Crawford has sent out an all hands on deck so everyone has to report in. Manon apparently steels herself for it and walks off without everybody.

Of course, you have to chase her to Crawfords Room, where he and Dozer are setting up a brief from the LC investigation. He thinks they’ve found DF in Stia. Central Canon is ready for battle, so we’ll lure it out and fire it when it is in range to put an end to the battle finally. Everyone’s really happy about this in the room…but it’s not that simple. Stia is the most dangerous place on all of Halpha. It has so much magma there that never cools, and that the Dolls are more numerous as well as stronger. The objective seems simple, but it’s the most dangerous mission he’s sent.

Aina has a question though…but are there any defenders there? Nadereh worked together, so will be able to team up with whoever is already there? He admits there’s a vanguard there but we can’t contact them. Oranjie will try to ring them, but Crawford says no, wait…because…but it’s too late. She’s already put in the call. It actually goes through (Remember, his room has a huge video call screen with cameras for both sides so everyone can always see each other.) Noroshi, a stia operator answers the call very cheerfully. Crawford clearly does not want to talk to someone in Stia. He likely told a mild lie in 'we can't contact them', because it was more like he doesn't want them contacted.

This soon reveals a masked guy, Glen. Glen is a duman/deuman man. He faces deliberately away from the camera while (Crawford and presumably Dozer explain the plan) Glen has no objections, but leaves the matter in the hands of Kanui (his 2^nd in command woman, apparently) who says its good to see the Central team again, and will prepare for the arrival of new people to Stia. Dozer looks gloomy and asks Crawford if “you two are still…” but he says they’ll surely succeed this time…we won’t make the same mistake twice this time. The scene ends.

So, it seems like Glen and Crawford are fighting for some reason, possibly a botched plan that happened in the past. It’s clear Crawford LIED about not being able to contact Stia Advance, AND never informed Oranje to ‘not contact Stia’ ahead of time. What are they fighting about?

Manon calls your phone and apologizes for worrying you, but she’s fine. She recommends talking to Guiden before heading out. Remember: Guiden is the greenish cast npc who can dispense quests that are worth loads of EXP. You need to have a certain number on the Battle Power scale to be allowed to get into Stia by the Aelio Ops team. Generally, just playing the game normally and waiting for updates to come, the Battle Power would likely already be ok--but if it's not, there's Guiden.

You can talk to Crawford first though, he’s happy with Ilmas’ data for the Central Canon. However, it’s all thanks to you.

We All Did it Together
Ilma Is A Cut Above

If you say We All Did It Together, he agrees, and says the 5 Siblings and The Trio put it all together just right. Crawford will now explain the funny story of how he met Ilma, which was thru anon comments on data he added to a library. They described his errors with meticulous detail, which made him incredulous…so he went back over it, found out the anon was right…wondered who he dealt with, got a Kvaris address, thought it could be Laisas but knew he was dead and so called the Lodge (So, he was dialing the dead guy's phone number basically--not knowing who he'd get) and it was Ilma, and his free spirited self-taught approach was refreshing, so he’s been getting advice ever since as he works his way through Laisas’ research. Crawford will work hard to keep up with him, so he’s back to work on the Canon to make sure it’s ready when we’ll need it, and the scene ends.

Next, you go to Guiden who will tell you about Lydia in An Adviser In Trouble. Being ARKS is more than just about fighting, and Lyida (who you may already know) is a member of Advanced Intelligence Support (AIS) so she’ll have useful info for you. This is connected to exp, battle power and being allowed into Stia (as mentioned above)

Ran will appear (when you reach level 66) to warn you about Stia, but tell you that you can go.

Crossing the bridge at Halphia lake takes you to Stia Outskirts: Grainne Coast. Here, you can find Manon who is ready to go at the beach. The goal is to get to the Stia Camp to meet the Vanguard. Everyone looks up at the giant/forbidding volcano and spiky black rock formations ahead. Aina says it’s sure something, and enemies appear in the distance. Manon says camp’s not too far so let's go.

There are the Krisnukle, a 1 armed spiky foe, flying “mono eye” looking spherical enemy XXX, the relatively weak butterfly/stingray shaped Flayray, the “Slug Head” which is a dragon/dog like large quadruped with tail and long neck. It has a huge sphere of ‘lava like’ texture for the head. They are all ALTERS type and thus have no faces. Grinbear is the Stia version of the Roufinbear. Defeating all these and a

Dark Lemnas will come out.
This is a new enemy, a bipedal dinosaur looking thing that can shoot lava bombs out of the back, do tail lashing attacks, charge forward and more. It's not a miniboss, but it is a larger foe.

Passing this, everyone heads toward where camp should be, when there’s an ambush by red weapon people who try to fight the trio right away. Everyone is ready to fight these red weapon holding attackers, but Glen tells them to stand down, and Aina’s having none of it, she draws down on him with her rifle. Glen doesn’t regard this, instead, he enters a staredown with your character for no apparent reason. Kanui approaches from the side of him, so Glen tells Kanui that she has to talk, and she explains they were merely testing the Trio Skills…so please forgive any insolence.

A highly suspicious first encounter. What if something had happened and someone was injured? Is this Glen guy ok with damaging a random citizen in order to get revenge on Crawford? What would Crawford do if someone just up and capped his emissary who everyone KNEW was coming to HELP them? The excuse of "oh he should have been ready for our bullet" would not fly back in town, even if it was a 'cross the bow warning' gone wrong and especially because everyone in Stia knew that Aelio was sending a team in. There's no real excuse for what he did.

Now, you have to go to the Stia Camp tent.
This lets you wander around the ‘city’ part of stia, which unlike Kvaris, is out in the open is made of various tents with camo print patterns. Animals here include armadillo-dogs, a fat bear/raccoon thing, and a head tilting owl bird. Inside the tent you can meet up with Kanui who explains to everyone that the strategy is in common with both here and central. (Though not everything matches up) She explains the plan about the 3 dolls bases in the region. Their next target is “The Plant”. They’ve had missions there before, but  The Plant is guarded by powerful dolls so, they have too many of it, and get repelled every time. He wants to try again, this time with Stia people as a distraction while Glen will take control of an elite squad to bring down the dolls of the base with this unique opportunity now that The Trio is also in Stia.

Now, oddly you can say

Yes Sir
or “…” at him.

Dotting him is very vague. It CAN be offensive in some circumstances, and in others it can go as a silent agreement. It is a poor choice of option because you don't know the tone or the exact context of the dotting you're about to do. If you dot at him, he’ll say don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of backup and the scene ends. Guiden calls you right away, so does Ran who says you can enter the Dreisen Plant, so do assist them but take precautions.

You can find Kanui at the entrance to Dreisen Plant. She is a quite pale beige cast woman with tall black/red tipped mechanical horns on the sides of her head. Her plate is a graphite middle-gray with burgundy red accents. She has pale yellowish eyes rimmed with a bit of red liner on the bottom lid, and pale/faded lips. Her hair is long and in a loose bottom-tie ponytail. It is a vague kind of tannish pinkish color. Her plate also features some of the iridescent silvery reflective stuff that the Stia people have in their outfits to repel heat. She is an elegant type of pretty person, and has fairly normally sized eyes.

She’ll tell you the attack is about to begin, so are you ready?
Inside the metal door (built into the wall of rock) She’ll tell you and the trio this is the plant. There are big bubbling vats of orange stuff…that apparently it lets out Dolls that are small. She doesn’t know where the big ones come from. (How do the dolls come out? Is there a dispenser somewhere? Could we stuff up the hole? These are just basically giant transparent glass jars, some at least 2 stories tall, there is no obvious exit. Are they teleporting out? If so, what is teleporting them out, and how to break it? Why has no one just set up a bunch of C4 in the plant and set it all off yet?) Aina is so shocked she wants to run forward, but Kanui blocks her a bit to explain that if we don’t get rid of these first, we won’t get anywhere.
She wants to split the main force inside the plant, because there are several ways thru and we don’t want to get flanked. We need to scout ahead and pick off dolls bit by bit. Take ‘em out then meet up in the center, so good luck.
Now, you have to face the Scout Wasp. The Scout Wasp is a black, medium sized (so, bit larger than a person) vehicle looking thing with 2 fan rotors in cowling and a laser scanner on the front. Kanui warns you it calls for backup if it sees an intruder (with its lazer) This is only the 2nd DOLLS where it does NOT look like an organic thing, but rather a vehicle. The other is the "Ship" that either carries boxes to steal in Kvaris or creates the 'heat column' to rise up elsewhere. There are also  lava-fuwan and Lava Tinos. Spardun A-Volore will also appear but it just seems to have a new paint job and is basically Spardan-A.  The Scout Wasp can be attacked from the top which knocks it down and exposes the core. If you don’t, it summons a Beehive. Now Called Behivo E for whatever reason. Remember: The 'beehive' is the diamond-shape-stack tower that levitates and fires off rounds of 3 bolts. It is basically a small dolls sentry tower that does not move. However, the bolts are fairly powerful.

Boostas will appear as you go down a level. The Boostas is an dolls with pile-driver type 'fists' that does the expected horizontal punching attacks. Now you’re among the larger orange jars to fight a Lava Roron and a Vanizz who is the inexplicably named Dotts/Doltz of the area. Next is the Lava Metius that does the same thing as a regular metius and some Gazzas guys. These are basically Pettas but lava. Aina complains that ‘how did this facility even get here’, (A very good question) but its time to try to meet Glen’s squad.
In the middle of a big open space the Trio reaches Glen’s people. He holds up a hand and looks around suspiciously. Suddenly from out of no-where, many Dolls appear so his squad leaps into action of a cut scene and so does the Trio. They use their red weapons to defeat lots of the same enemies we’ve already encountered. Glen has twin daggers. He steps on a dolls after knocking it down and stabs it such that it fountains up red…sparks? Suddenly there’s a rumble and more dolls appear so you have to fight them. After it’s all done, Manon is surprised they defeated them all so easily. Glen commands his helmeted helpers to go off and continue. Aina says he’s another level of strength. The only one who could rival him was Crawford…but Kanui hasn’t seen him fight for quite a while. This is likely trying to demonstrate 'unneccesary roughness' of Glen. However, because DOLLS aren't alive, they can't be tormented by breaking them, no matter how they're broken.

Aina wants to ask, back in central when Crawford saw Glen on the communication screen, and acted strange. You agree with that. Aina wonders what’s wrong, but Kanui won’t explain though because Glen interrupts by running over. But a monster, the Stratis (a 2 legger mini boss that is somewhat dinosaur like) has even worse timing and their Cast guy is knocked down by a giant Stratis which knocks Glen away as well. It’s worse timing because it stops the explanation of why Glen and Crawford know each other and somehow have a problem with each other. If you can defeat the Stratis and his Gazzas helpers, a Blaze Nogleth will appear next and the Trio also has to fight it. If you can defeat it...

Glen wants to go to North base next. Kanui introduces it, it has dolls and fortifications, so it’ll be more difficult. Everyone nods, and agrees to go with the info gathered by the scouts. Aina looks around, but they were lost on the last battle.(Presumably their cast guy was a scout, and he was picked up/pulled away by others around that cut scene) Central Recon guys volunteer with the support of the Central Command room. But, until it’s complete, rest up and re stock. Notify her when you’re well prepared, though. The scene ends.

They verify the number of dolls and their locations within the north base. Now, you can meet Kanui on the bridge to Alterra base. Your first task is to mop up enemies left behind as Kanui’s team rushes ahead. Lava Bombs can fall in this area, and it startles Aina, so an explanation appears that you can throw them, but watch out: they’ll explode eventually regardless and damage whatever is near. They last about 10 seconds worth of holding them. It is actually pretty worth-while to throw these because the damage to enemies is quite decent.

You can use these to get rid of Boostas, the fists dolls enemy, and lava-tinos. Afterword, Aina gets explained about the Lava Pools with Lava Cores in their center. If you throw a Lava Bomb at a Lava Core, it’ll explode and do big damage to any nearby enemy. It also ‘coats’ them with a blue glow that makes them much easier to damage with normal hits. However, the radius of this is fairly small/moderate, and the lava pool takes a long time to recharge the core. The Lava Core just looks like a ball or bubble in the middle of a lava pool. Outside of this base area, there are also other pools, but they are not always active, and the weather (Of Stia) affects them/whether they have Cores or not. The pools outside are important because Mega Minerals (A large mineral) can only be broken by throwing a Lava Bomb at it. This gives out many crafting items.

In the next area, freely draw the Stratis and his Gazzas helpers back toward the lava pools with cores in them to make them very easy to defeat: just pester them enough to get them to chase you close enough to the pools, as their damage area isn’t super huge.

Foraging ahead, and a new boss type enemy will come out. It’s the “Dark Magliz”, and Kanui realizes it has suddenly showed up in front of the Trio. She’s very worried about this, because it is apparently quite bad news. Her command is to hold out till her team can get back there. (They’d already been through the area, remember, and it simply didn’t appear while they were there—a typical thing to happen because dolls just do anything/teleport in from anywhere)

The Dark Magliz is a sort of humanoid (in that it has 4 limbs) floating/flying thing that shoots out laser beams that later cause explosion rays. It also does darkness attacks, flies all around, and the…feet? Seem a bit ‘hand’ like. Of course, throwing as much lava bombs as possible, and breaking the lava cores that it chose to appear near is the best way to rid of it. It has tons of HP but a good Core hit can do over 10k of damage in 1 strike.

As the Dark Magilz is defeated by the Trio, it does a cutscene showing how others were also there, but someone got knocked down. Manon blocks the blast though, as guy was getting ready to get over there to it. You and he team up together to stop it. Manon and Aina help his red weapon guy (who had fallen) to get back up. IS THIS the same as "Un-named Guy" who saves Manon later on in the plot? The clothing of the game isn't instantly recognizable as it was in PSO.

Later, everyone gets inside to some 'main room' looking technological type place. There’s a complex password on the lock in the plant, so it can’t move forward without that. Aina asks Manon to try, she agrees and she does unlock it.Southern base Control Room has another terminal though. It is as Kanui thought, so we have to go to the South Base as planned. The scene ends.

So there are passwords put on there by who?
If it's the fore-runners or whoever that built the DOLLS plants or whatever, why are their passwords so easy to hack after all their tech that we see is so advanced nobody even knows how it works? How is Manon pulling this off at all? What would Glen do if he got there and Manon wasn't on hand to macguffin her way through this stuff? You CAN see why they'd put multiple locks on things in different places, that at least makes sense decision-wise.

Dext Base is the name of the Base in the South.

Everyone gathers, and she explains the plan to break through quickly. Manon knows everyone is tired and in poor shape, but Glen says if we don’t do it now, we may not get another chance. (This is all taking place over 1 day, apparently) Kanui believes the help of the trio is the best way to do it now. Aina reassures Manon that it will be ok to go in. Aina is tired, but confident. She reassures Kanui that if another giant dolls comes out, don’t worry about the Trio, just focus on securing the base. Glen is likely right about this decision, nobody's made it this far before clearing out this many dolls and if anyone waits, they'll just warp more of them in.

Securing it….from what exactly? Passwords? For what? Set by who?

Gazzas axes and lava fuwans will appear. The Vanizz, is the Doltz Dotts of the Stia region. It follows the ever more complex head designs these things seem to have. This time, it has 3 points and shoots 3 lasers which also explode. Getting rid of these, Kanui will check in on you with Glen, and the Trio affirms they’ve cleaned up all Dolls, so meet up ahead.

A giant 4 legged…dragon looking giraffe maybe thing? Long neck long tail dinosaur? With tons of points? Will appear. Glen is very upset by the Nils Stia appearing. He rushes it and gives the command to attack now.

As you attack it, it shoots points off of the sides of the neck and tail all around. Glen stabs it in the top of the head with his twin daggers but it summons a laser ball that shoots out 3 lasers and electrocutes maybe? One of Glen’s men. It has various stomp attacks which it uses to try and get Glen. The legs have special glowing armor shells on them that give it stomping power. These are all 4 breakable. It is unable to stomp him, but you are able to distract it until it summons lots of other enemies like Fuwans and Gazzas which everyone must then fight. So it disappears because??? Reasons? Glen has an absolute fit about it, and you have to stop him punching the ground and probably hurting himself.

This is the first instance of a boss deciding not to fight or performing some kind of 'strategic' retreat, either in the game or in the plot part. Are they inferring that the Nils Stia is actually smart and has more than 2 settings like EVERY single other Dolls to exist? (Their settings are either 'patrol' or 'attack'--they are seemingly not mindful at all)

Everyone is tired, his people have fallen in several instances, and Kanui calls the rescue unit. Glen says that the guy hit by the biggest beam has died. This upsets Kanui a lot, the scouts interrupt her, and she asks you to go to the Control Terminal with them (so that they make it)

Everyone seems actually kind of stuck in here at this point. It is a bad situation being far inside an enemy's big building, especially with a huge evil thing that can teleport at will and you never know when it'll show up.

Manon thinks its odd because she unlocked it but nothing changed. The barrier never removed. A scout tells her that Crawford called, and releases a mag so he can send a message about his analyses. Stia Nerve Center is the central part. You need 1 more terminal…but we don’t know where it is. However, another cut in appears and: Someone has figured something out about it, and it’s Ilma!

He cuts in and sends the intel to the mag right away. Choose the correct array, but he believes in you (So now they know where the last thing is). Crawford says Ilma may have taken a liking to Manon. Crawford is now sure that DF is in the center of the area you're already in, so continue the prep. Kanui has transpored and treated the wounded while all this was said/went on. Manon will continue her work here, but everyone else needs to head toward this new point.

Manon is still working on the barrier with the scouts.. Kanui has lost track of Glen, who is up higher on a platform, hitting a wall with his fist. She shakes her head about this, and you go up there to talk to him. She thinks about trying to hold you back from doing that, but she decides against it.

He asks Hibana if he’s still not strong enough. You approach, and he says it’s you.

Blaming Yourself Won’t Solve Anything
One Person Can Only Do So Much

It is true that One Person Can Only Do So Much, he asks why? And demands that you think he doesn’t know that?

Remember, his expressions are difficult to read because he has a metal/plastic mask on his entire lower face. His upper face has a scar over 1 eye, but the skin to the left and right of it is slightly different…maybe across the whole face. It's hard to tell if he's upset, mad, or in a grief type of situation.

You’ve Done Nothing Wrong
All Of Us Have Our Part To Play

The 2^nd answer here is pretty cryptic…but he’s clearly blaming himself for something. Neither one of these answers is going to do him any good. If you tell him You’ve Done Nothing Wrong, he stares you down with the evil eye until Aina shows up with a box of stuff and food/drinks and healing help for everyone, including Manon. She says morale will tank on just the box meals, and Kanui agrees. She waves at you and Glen, but he’ll have nothing to do with it and stalks off because that’s the sort that he is. *Remember, you have no idea why he's being like this, it's not your characters' place to tell him 'he did nothing wrong', you weren't there, you don't know what happened to Hibana, and that's why neither phrase will do him any good / of course he will stare down the character.

He thinks it over though, about nothing to do about avoiding fatalities as they continue. (Remember, he lost a guy today to the Nils Stia which is reminding him about how it killed Hibana longer ago) He looks over the crew as they eat the food and sit on the floor because it is a big empty room with creepy neon and purple lights in the walls and floor. Aina will ask if you like the food

It’s Delicious!
…

It would probably be rude to … her, so if you say It’s Delicious, She’s happy because she put lots of special effort into it and she is very glad. She eats it too, and is in good cheer.

However, Kanui seems sad about something/reserved. She explains  Nils Stia has a big history with Glen. Crawford and Glen used to fight together, with Hibana, their training partner. They were a Trio (probably just like this one…so a new trio showing up with all the member still alive may bother Glen at the outset)  Nils Stia attacked Central 10 years ago. It killed Hibana, but was driven off.
WHY does nobody mention an ENTIRE SECOND BOSS during the Nex Aelio problem time at Central? That's a pretty darn important detail that EVEN MORE bs was going down 10 years ago. Did Garoa fight it too? What's the deal?

She explains that after this happened, each commander went to separate areas with separate goals. Crawford resolving to strengthen defense to develop powerful weapons to end fights without endangering lives. However, Glen perused Nils Stia to its lair, thinking it’s the cause of all Stia’s problems. He launched attacks on enemy bases and recruited all Arks he could get to cleanse Stia of the Nils and the Dolls menace. Aina didn’t know that about the past, it’s a very sad story.
So you can see how they would disagree/create the current scuffle that they are in: Each couldn't recruit the other to his cause, after they had been a unified trio this whole time. Hibana's death was the catalyst of it, but the effect stood until now. This makes sense.

Glen, however, sneaks up on everyone just as the story ends. He has a message for Crawford: he pursues this on his own, so Crawford should continue to pursue his own battles. Manon disrupts his message though, and says the barrier should deactivate shortly, so prep is up to Kanui. The scene ends.

Notice ALL this 10 years ago stuff.
Something absolutely happened 10 years ago that made ALL dolls apparently just totally throw themselves at Central. Remember the Nex Aelio showing up and Garoa etc. all coming out to fight it because ‘a legion of dolls’ also showed up with it to sack central. (Revealed in the limited time quest that lets you ‘ghost’ along with the people’s data who were really there and thus 'relive' the time it happened for training purposes)
Smells like seat of the pants: It's fishy that nobody mentioned Nils Stia 10 years ago too, are they plotting this thing by the seat of the pants and just adding things willy-nilly after the fact? Like how "oh all the pokemon were always there we.....just didn't show those ones we invented last year because the show is 5 years old...like them retconning "Seagulls into Wingulls" because they hadn't invented Wingull at the time the episode was made. It's fishy that nobody in the plot would mention it.

Glen’s Face:
Whatever happened to his face DIDN’T happen in the Nils fight that killed Hibana. He didn’t wear the mask at that time, either. (It would have been cliché if it had) Glen’s face was unscarred at the time, and he is normal looking other than being a brownish charcoal shade as he is a Duman.

You are now tasked with meeting Kanui again at the Halpha Mediola bridge area to get to “Stia’s Nerve Center” When you arrive, she believes that this next fight will put an end to the Dolls menace for good. Starting it will make Manon and Aina appear, both of whom are sure that DF is in this next area. It really has quite a view, as this bridge is at the top of the volcano, near where the ray shoots out and the energy is pouring upward. There are also sparks from the minor eruptions, and the odd red/black metal stuff everywhere. Inside the roughly conically arranged ‘building’ at the top there’s a teleport pad, so Manon says let’s go because Glen’s team will be waiting. Using it puts the trio in a super high ceiling room with hexagonal floor plate, ceiling, and strange columns of hexes. There are also blue tubes of goo.

Aina calls Glen, who says that the 4 of us will lead the way with Kanui as rear guard. Glen is then dropped into the area with the trio. A Stratis and gazzaz axe helpers appear ahead. Let the npcs pester the Stratis first while you handle the axes, or they’ll make it annoying to fight.  Gazzas guns and fuwans remind Glen of some other battle, but he mostly ‘neverminds’ them away when asked. Next, a Engoukou will appear. This guy is very interestingly designed because it is clearly modeled after Journey to the West’s “Goku” monkey kid /monkey king character. When doing the story, this is likely the first time to see this enemy. It has the iconic bo staff that can change lengths, and will extend it to rise up ‘on the lookout’. Of course, all it’s attacks are fire based. It can spin around the staff kicking flames out, slam the staff, do flame AOE attacks and more. It is of course, basically ‘monkey like’ in structure, but has 4 longer head-mounted ‘dolls tentacles’.

Aina wonders if DF is ahead, and interestingly Glen says ‘if that’s what Crawford thinks, than he agrees’.  It isn’t though, it’s Vanizz which is stia’s doltz and lava rorons. All of these are quite large, and create an imposing presence in the room, however, the Vanizz still has the relatively low hp of the Doltz/Dotts it is based upon so these are all defeated normally. Then, more gazzas launchers and a lava metius will come out. They ask why so many big dolls are here, but there’s no telling. Kill the metius first, and let the NPCs bother the Gazzas. They shoot out delayed set-off ‘bombs’ from the guns that can interrupt any combo. If you leave the Metius alone, it will heal the whole group essentially making you fight everything twice because it heals for something like 10k each enemy. Now, a Doldoris (drill headed t rex dinosaur) will appear and sniff around in the big open area next. This guy is a fearsome foe because it has a wide variety of attacks that cover a wide area. It is reminiscent of a "bullet hell" enemy from a space shooter type game. It can drill and go underground, spray huge areas with 100s of bullets, stick the face in the ground and body slam the body about, tail whip, and more. The weak spot (yellow patch) is inside the drill cage of the head, so you have to break that off first. Of course, it can regrow the drill cage head too...  If you can beat it…