Variant dungeons are difficult in an 'immediate thoughts and reactions' thread like this, because they're intended to be a slower burn even on the lore and storytelling side. I love them for that, but it makes it hard to report back with thoughts. I've only had the time to do one run so far, but it's already probably my favorite variant dungeon so far.

That run ended in fighting 'The Lala', which if cutscenes around it can be believed, was a post-Nymian arcanima construct, very neat, and shows us cool things about the workings of arcanima. Also, Matsya's dialog in that fight makes Forced March extra creepy. He mentions not understanding it afterwards, but I'm not sure if that was a hint towards 'the Echo translated that for us but not Matsya', or towards 'The Lala was speaking several grades above Matsya's reading level'. Neither of which feels tremendously important, honestly, but hey.