"...wow, across - how big an area -"

"That's everywhere. - you won't get more than a few per major city."

"Is it always cities?"

"Population centers - rarely in a town but sometimes. Once on a cruise ship."

"Huh. Because that's where there's people to - kidnap, for - what do they want us for?"

"We don't know."

"...what do they do with people if nobody rescues them?"

"They vanish and the people aren't seen again."

"Ah."

"That largely doesn't happen but things can fall through the cracks, especially during confluences."

"That's... what it sounds like?"

"If what it sounds like is a dramatic increase in dungeon appearances, yeah."

"What makes those happen?"

"People aren't sure."

"I'm gonna guess that's also the case with dungeons themselves?"

"Unfortunately."

"How long has this been a thing?"

"Since the 70s. Uh, possibly we should switch subjects after this next batch I am starting to worry I am responsible for the sorry state of my world and that's never a good sign."

"Right, sorry. Uh, read any good books lately?"

Lucien read a government handbook on setting up rapidly deployable dungeon resource harvesting teams in medium sized municipalities! It was great.

Not what she'd pick for light reading but it seems to be keeping his mind off the world's woes.

It's really cool actually! It's an incredibly difficult logistical problem with serious pay-offs for getting it right, and the handbook is aimed at areas that lack the population to make use of any teams at all consistently so it's about being sure you have the right people on call to mine superconducting materials if they show up in a dungeon, without having that be those people's full time job! Also the financing around this whole thing is fascinating.

He must be so proud of himself. (She doesn't say that but she's really listening for the implication.)

He does not imply that! It's obviously not him.

Until he does the next batch of tagged at which point he is totally implying that - he does think about this a lot after all. He does feel bad for not doing better - there was a long period where they didn't manage to harvest resources from anywhere outside of the biggest cities.

"Do most dungeons have good stuff in them?"