The contact sings once more, promising so much and yet giving so little -

And abruptly, they're back in their respective silos. 

Hailey shudders, her breath shaky, from the moment of contact.

She tears through the things on her coffee table, looking for her wand—

Then turns it on and wraps her hand around it, burning the itching, crawling, twitchy feeling of contact with a new person out with blessed pain. She sighs in relief and collapses onto her couch, savoring the electricity flowing through her palm, before stripping her jacket and top off and attacking her breasts with the wand.

Liath exhales hard, in her own silo, and pulls out another tarot deck to shred. Her hands are shaking, a little, her usual confidence that she's doing the right thing more fluttery and unstable from the brief touch. 

"Damn, that was... It's a start." 

She settles in to her meditative destruction of card by card, taking a marker to some, simply tearing apart others.

Her breath is low and shaky, her eyelids fluttery. 

She can't wait to see Ancile again. 

Hailey's a little more hesitant about the prospect, she's been burned too many times to have a lot of hope yet, but this is still more hope than she's had in a long time. She's looking forward to their next dungeon a bit too.

Of course all of that's in the back of her mind, distracted as she is by a haze of pain as she manages her backlash.

The next morning, Ancile's ready and waiting for Singularity in the same meeting room as before.

Singularity greets her, her professional game face on but less solid than usual. 

"Hello again," she says. "I've been informed that a healer has been contracted under NDA for us." She nods to Daniel.

"They're a support esper by the name of Miracle," Daniel confirms. "B-rank, but should be able to handle anything that doesn't imperil you two's lives. Be cautious and things should be relatively safe. They were chosen on two qualities - not needing physical contact to heal, and proven ability to keep their mouth shut." 

Huh, that sounds handy—

Waaaaait...

"Is that for...?"

She blushes.

Daniel coughs. "Yes."

"Subject of course to what you're comfortable with," Liath adds. "Consider it a longer-term investment if need be."

Yep that's blush-worsening.

"Okay yep we need to kill things and then you," she points at Liath, "need to take me out to lunch. I need to stop thinking about those possibilities for now."

Ffffuuuuuuuuck that's a tempting thought. 

Nope. Think about planning.

"So what d'we have on this morning's target?"

Valerie taps a panel on her comm, and a map appears. "Today's dungeon is themed around carnivorous plants and strangling vines. The layout does not seem to shift, and we don't have any blind spots, but it's all stone corridors covered in plants. Identifying what's a threat and what's not may be tricky, so be on guard. Some signs of ambient pollen, pheromones, and toxins, so breathing masks are mandatory. Recommended path highlighted in black, known threats marked in red."

Respirators aren't exactly her kink, but they're part of the job, so Liath nods along and gets down to discussing the known mimics in the environment that were discovered by the sensors. Securing the respirators properly and configuring close-in shields so the respirators can't be easily stripped by vines or caught in a noose is one of Liath's higher priorities. She could just crush everything, but that's the kind of trick you don't pull every dungeon or you'll have a short career.

Hailey can hug pretty tight with her shields, but if they want something tighter than a spherical bubble it'll impede Liath's movement. It's easiest if she doesn't have to mentally track gestures, or anything more than threats and a set of static positions relative to her body. Can Liath stand on something held by her own TK? And support Hailey at the same time? (Of course if a sphere is fine then Liath can gesture all she wants.)