"Do you have pictures or should I maybe be considering a trip out there? Was it much different before the dungeon died?"

"I have pictures of all the monsters I've caught and lots that I didn't! It shot spikes at people out its blowhole before and doesn't do that any more but I don't know if it can't or just no longer feels moved to do so."

"What was the dungeon like? Was it all water?"

"Practically no dungeon is all water, they've generally got air above the water, but some of them don't have land and you have to set up pontoons or something to set equipment and stage your team on. That one was sort of like a platformer video game? It had a water level and politely provided everyone in there victim and rescuer alike with a time-limited air bubble. It was in the room after the forest level and before the cloud level. I did not proceed into the lava level, I'm no good at extreme temperature, but I did the first three rooms."

"That is...weirdly specific. Or maybe not that specific, I wouldn't know. Was the core in the lava area?"

"No, boss monster in the fifth chamber had it. A lot of dungeons are weirdly specific. Very few dungeons have all the features that most dungeons have, but 'not weirdly specific' isn't even one of those."

"Do you have any favourite stories?

"You wanna narrow that down for me any?" He's starting to circle back toward his house now.

"Ever been in one with dinosaurs, or other variants of prehistoric animals?"

"Yeah! Not one of the famous ones but I was in a cave system with pterodactyl-y monsters one time. They had the victims inside their eggs with a bunch of decoys, the victims had to hatch on their own and nothing from the outside could scratch the shells except we could pass them tools - I have a non-public power that let me do that."

"Did they all get out?"

"One person died in that one. Which is unusual, dungeons can and will keep people alive in situations that ought to be unsurvivable - this one was mostly doing that, but grabbed somebody with a preexisting condition it couldn't or didn't compensate for." His house is in sight again now.

"Oh." Well it's a good thing they're almost back to the house because now there's too many feelings in this conversation for her to immediately come up with further response.

"We killed the dungeon, though, so it'll never get anyone again!" He comes in for a neat landing and opens the door. Blessed warmth.

Oh, she went quiet and now he's making a Face. She's should keep saying things so he stops making that face. "You want to show me leafy dolphin pictures now that we're on the ground?" There we go.

"Sure, my phone takes voice commands so I can trick myself into feeling like I'm talking to you if I tell it to pull up my photos," he says over the course of getting the situated on the couch and pulling out his phone. "And find pictures of Seaweed - the aquarium named it by poll."

Pictures!

"Aww that's a cute name.And the dolphin is very cute, I bet it's' a popular exhibit. I assume they have it on its own? I hope it's not distressed about that like a real dolphin would be...Have they been able to to train it to do tricks or anything?"

"It's all by itself, yeah. They can get it to jump out of its tank for treats."

"But nothing more complex? Have they tried and it didn't work or just not tried?"

"I don't actually know, I've placed a couple dozen monsters and can't keep up with them all."

"That makes sense, I'm sure you've got lots of other thing to keep up with."

"I keep pretty busy. I can only do like three or four dungeons a week with my present partner since our guiding rate is bad, but I do interviews and write blog posts and stuff."

"Is three or four dungeons a week not many?" She kind of wants to pull out her phone and read the blog post about Egypt but that's a bit difficult to do while also snuggling and he's backlashed now too.

"Some people do about that load by choice, especially if their powers are really specific - there's a hydrokineticist, Tidepool, who's basically only good in water dungeons, for example - but I'd be doing a few times that many if I could, I've got solid generic powers."

"I'm not sure how much of a time commitment that is. I.." she makes a face "when my brain is working normally again...I will want to keep at least some of my social life.I will of course quit my job if I'm doing any dungeons since - I don't hate it but it doesn't bring me joy. I find my college classes interesting."

sigh, "Of course maybe I'll end up with powers that aren't really useful anyway and it will be a moot point."