A bored teenager in a comfy pink sweater startles slightly. "Whoa! A real person! Hi!"

He holsters his gun, checks his corners real quick, and steps inside.  "Hey.  I'm a real person named Bryce.  Well, Shadowcat, but," he gets a bit of the body language one gets when one is rolling one's eyes affectionately at oneself, "Bryce."

"I'm Kimberly! Watch out for the big tall dudes, have you seen one yet?"

"No, but we've gotten reports.  You okay?"  She doesn't look injured, he doesn't think.  Hopefully him assessing that does not look too much like him checking her out Bryce, you do this for a living, come on.

She is moderately check-outable if you're into the wholesome cozy girl-next-door look. "I've had a pretty decent time, honestly, I only got chased by a big spooky guy like once," which is for some reason a sentence she's blushing slightly about.

EXCUSE YOU Kimberly's narration he is ABSOLUTELY NOT DOING THAT.  "Not caught?  That's good.  Stay in the corner a minute - "

He draws his gun but keeps it pointed at the ground.  The room's less lit than the hallways, in the way that the dead-ends people say they've been getting dropped in are, but it's L-shaped with Kimberly in the corner.  He's briefly checks out the other exit to see if anything's coming toward them or otherwise lurking; apparently there isn't.

She sure does stay in the corner! The gun makes her a bit wary, in the 'don't bump into the person cutting veggies in the kitchen' kind of way.

So valid honestly.  (He keeps it pointed at the ground and has his fingers off the trigger, if she's liable to notice such things.)

He holsters it and turns to her and says, "We're clear.  - No big tall guys coming."  She probably gets it.  "I'm gonna call you in and then I'll go ahead and walk you to the portal, it's maybe twenty minutes on foot.  Can I get your full name, where you got kidnapped from and if anyone saw you go?"

"Kimberly Brown, hallway of my dorm building, I don't think there was anybody around? Wow, is this place that big?? No wonder I couldn't find the way out."

"It's not, like, twenty minutes on foot across in radius, or anything, but it's kind of maze-y, so we can't just take a straight shot there."

"Ooooh, sense. It's true, there is many a squiggle in these here halls."

...she's cute?????

" - uh," he says, and shakes himself, "gotta call you in."

Hee! Got a smile out of 'im!

She nods cheerfully and waits.

"Heya, got a rescue," and he names some incomprehensible coordinates.  "Kimberly Brown, brown hair, five-oh, about - what, nineteen or twenty?"  He looks at her interrogatively.

"Twenty," she agrees.

"Twenty.  Dropped out of the dorm hallway, no confirmed witnesses."  The radio says something crunchy and staticky back to him, and he says, "Were you expected anywhere?"

"I was on my way home after class... my roommate might be worried if she got home while I was kidnapped?"

"Who's your roommate?"

"Lenore. Lenore, uh, Beck?"

"Lenore Beck?"  Crunch crunch.  "All right."  He unclicks the talk button on his radio and mounts it back on his shoulder and says, "Yeah, we're clear to head back."  He considers briefly, and says, "Keep your voice low and walk softly and let me check around corners, but things have been pretty quiet so far and 20 minutes is a miserable amount of time to spend in total silence, so we can chat a little on the way if you like."

"Okay!" She smiles. "So, how's being a cool dungeon hero guy?"

"It's - " he giggles a little " - you know what, it's pretty damn cool."

"Well good! It'd be a shame if it sucked."

"God, it really would," he murmurs.  "You can just not-do the dungeon thing, though, if you're an esper.  Professional partner, anti-esper security guard, guy-who-can't-get-dungeon-napped.  But I like traveling and I - " like going on adventures is tasteless to say to a kidnapping victim probably, to say nothing of like seeing weird fucked up monsters up close.  Plus almost no dungeon monsters are actually that weird and fucked up, this place notwithstanding.  "I just like the job."

"It seems like it could be a fun job! Going places, meeting people. I hear some dungeons are really pretty." She looks around at the grungy walls. "...not this one, but some of 'em."

Snort.  "This... place... has... an aesthetic sensibility."

"You know, I will give it that. It sure does."

Giggle.  "I am honestly sometimes appealed to by - it's hard to explain and I gotta stay frosty - but there are places in cities and like industrial-vibes stuff that I think are pretty, that other people think are ugly."

"Oh, yeah, I can see that. I mean, maybe. Guess I don't know if I'm thinking of the right stuff."

"Whatever stuff you're thinking of I think we're on the same page.  I'm very in favor of de gustibus not disputanding."

She giggles softly. "In Latin, even!"

"Real authentic Latin," he deadpans.

"Close enough, in my opinion."

- he wants to make a joke about her having low standards that also somehow incorporates the phrase "taste in men" but it's not coming together and also holy fuck, Bryce, you cannot say that type of shit to a dungeon kidnap victim you are rescuing.  Uh - "What are you studying?"  He has been basically talking about himself this whole time anyway.

"I'm an English major because I make great decisions and am gonna have career opportunities comin' out my nose for sure."

"Oh no!"  He giggles ruefully.  "What made you wanna major in English?  I mean that in a perfectly neutral non-judgmental way."

"To be honest with you I think I just never got over my childhood dream of growing up to be a librarian. But it turns out being a librarian is like pretty hard actually. Much less sleepin' on piles of books like a dragon than I thought when I was five. So an English major is kinda the next best thing."

" - oh, that's kinda sweet."  And cute.  Wait is it okay to say sweet but not cute?  Whatever.  "What do you do with an English major?" - blink.  He feels like he's heard that somewhere but he can't place it.

—a little snicker, as though she has thought of something not entirely appropriate to say in response, but then she says, "I think mostly not much. I dunno, maybe Lenore'll pester me into actually trying the librarian thing for real."

"I guess if I were gonna guess how to become a librarian, English major makes sense as a first stop.  Is Lenore pester-y?  Pestersome.  - oh, a pest!"  He doesn't literally clonk himself on the forehead but he makes a similar sort of head movement.

"Only in the good way. Like a sheepdog, not a flea."

He sporfles a little in a weird way that sounds both charmed and a little concerned.  "Do you... need a lot of... herding?"

"Maybe kinda yeah."

"Is it... too personal if I ask what kind?  I guess the librarian example is - illustrative."

"I don't think it's too personal? You seem nice. And you're rescuin' me." She smiles and ducks her head a little, embarrassed. "I kinda have trouble standin' up for myself? I also just fully forget to eat dinner if I'm too busy reading some weird stuff I found on the Internet."

" - you don't owe me anything for rescuing you," he says, quickly, firmly.  "This is my job, I get paid, and I'm doing it to help people and not as a - interpersonal bid."

"Nah," she says, cheerfully. "Like I don't owe you owe you, for sure. But it sure the heck makes a positive impression. Like the exact opposite of catchin' somebody spiking my drink at a party. Says nice things about who you are as a person. And I think you just gotta deal with that."

He sporfles again.  "Ffffuckin' got me there, I guess, okay."  (He could split hairs about this if he tried but this girl seems to know what she's about, and he has, you know, nonzero insight into his personal foibles even at his age.)  "Weird stuff on the internet, huh?"

She giggles softly, blushing. "Dangit. Why do I always end up bringing up the weird Internet stuff."

" - uh, we don't have to get into it if you don't want."  He rubs his hand on the back of his neck and bites his lip.

"It just keeps weirding people out, is all." She glances around. "And I guess it's not super appropriate for polite company either. Gonna scandalize those tall spooky dudes."

"I'm sure the Slendermans have delicate sensibilities."  He pronounces "Slenderman" like it's somebody's last name.  "Some other time, maybe."

"Slendermins........... eee hee hee..."

"Wee woo, collect my pages."

"I have no idea what you're talkin' about but it's funny anyway."

"...it might be too high context to explain for how frosty I wanna stay, sorry.  Uh, it was a Pikmin noise and then a Slender Man meme."

"You'll just hafta tell me all about it when I'm done getting rescued."

Do not say it's a date, Bryce.  "Will do."

Happy lil bounce.

She's so cuuute he's a professional and this isn't an esper mixer.

He - stops, and narrows his eyes, and cocks his head to one side, and - goes very still and quiet.

—sounds like going very still and quiet is also a thing Kimberly should do.

Moving slowly and smoothly, he looks in her direction.  He touches a finger to his lips, but by his body language, he knows that she gets it.

They're approaching a T-junction.  He pads toward it; tilts and cranes his head very slightly back and forth like he's trying to localize a sound; then, slowly, peers around the left corner.

See, the thing is, this is an impendingly violent and dangerous situation but that's also objectively just so funny, what he's looking at here.

...???

He steps back from the corner, still slow and smooth and silent, and turns to look in her direction with intent to approach close.

She is Concerned but also Curious!

He takes a few silent steps toward her - 

- they're actually quite close, now, and face to face - 

- and pauses, seeming to consider something.

He gestures to his mouth, then to her right ear, then tilts his head solicitously: may I come close enough to whisper?

...inviting headtilt? While attempting to psychically project a cloud of question marks with her face?

He leans in - 

- very very close, actually - 

- close enough to whisper in her ear, and he says, "Stay calm, mkay?  There is a monster around the corner."

Nod nod. Seems reasonable. She's pretty good at staying calm, all things considered.

"It's distracted," he says.  "I don't think it knows we're here.  I'm going to kill it."

Also seems reasonable! Nod nod smile!

"My power will stop it from noticing me," he continues, "so in a minute I'll be talking and moving at a normal volume.  You should still be this quiet.  Mkay?"

Nod nod smile. Thumbs up. Go get 'em!

He leans back and smiles and thumbs-ups back.  He was gonna ask her if she was doing okay at this point but she really seems to be taking this in stride.  Kind of a badass.

Okay, she can Stand Here And Be Quiet while he takes care of the monster. This is a job Kimberly is equipped to perform. Unless she sneezes. Thankfully she does not currently have to sneeze.

He takes a couple of steps back, looking at her kind of fondly - 

 - and shuts his eyes, and takes a series of deep, steadying breaths.

One of those, huh?

Well. In a sense aren't they all ones of those?

He opens his eyes.

He seems to be more - deliberate, now, somehow.

"It can't hear me," he says at normal volume, "you can.  Under two minutes, I think."

He turns and makes swift way round the corner.

She listens. Part of her wants to peek around the corner but she thinks she will not be doing that actually. Maybe instead she will glance behind her just in case another spooky dude sneaks up while Bryce is busy.

His footsteps patter down the hall.  They're quiet, but only from the muffling of the carpet.  They're rapid, as well; he's in a hurry.  Soon they're too muffled to hear, at least if you're not an esper.

Nothing is in evidence behind her right now, just the tangle of hallways and not-quite-sensical rooms through which they've already come.

She's a little worried for him, but not, like, that worried. She can chill.

It's quiet, now.  Only esper hearing is good enough to pick up whatever tipped him off, and whatever's happening now.  She'll hear her own breathing.

Should she...?

Nah. She believes in him.

There's a gunshot, and a kind of loud, gurgling, croaking rattle, and two more gunshots; and, after a moment, the swift patter of footsteps.

Dang, okay! Sounds like a success to her!

"'Sme," he says, "it's dead."

Coming into view, he's definitely tenser.  He's holding onto the corner of the wall, though not for balance.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Are you? You, uh... kinda looked like you were about to have a time." And now kind of looks like he's having one. Not very much, but a little bit.

"Backlash."  He opens his mouth, hesitates, closes it again and shakes his head.  "Backlash.  I didn't know it was going to scream, it wasn't that loud but we should maybe move."

"...yeah 'kay." She can hustle a bit more and chat a bit less, how about.

Round the corner.  It's actually a bit of a walk to where the monster was.  It's dissolving into black ichor, slowly, outward from the wounds in its throat and its chest, but its not so far gone that she can't see the shape of the thing: skinny, with gray-black skin that clings to its ribs and its pelvis, but sinewy scrappy-looking limbs.  Its four hands are disproportionate, with six- or seven-inch claws.  There's not much left of its head.

The corpse is lying at another intersection of corridors.  Intersections so far have been marked with arrows and numbers.  The arrows and numbers at this intersection have been scribbled out and replaced with different ones.

" - gotta call this in," he mutters.

"Wow, it was messin' with your graffiti."

 - half-laugh.  "Yeah."

He takes his mic off the shoulder-mount and speaks into it.  "Encounter.  Shot it down.  Can we get a count on those spray cans, because this thing was using one to cross out our arrows."  (He does in fact now have two red spray cans hooked to his belt, rather than the one he had when he found her.)

(Quietly, "Oh my goodness did it steal one? Graffiti thief?")

Crunch, crunch, static.

"Yeah, this would've been - five five three - it is now triangle, omega, upside-down-question-mark.  Arrow's going right instead of left."

That's weirdly adorable.

"I," he begins and shakes his head in impatience at himself and instead says, "it screamed.  We might wanna move."

The crunchy staticky voice on the radio says, "Okay, leave it.  553's about halfway back."

"Yeah."

Kimberly does not know what that means, but perhaps she does not have to.

He turns to her.  "We should move, we're about ten minutes out."  He holds his hand out to her, but then seems to second guess himself: it darts back down to his side. (He grimaces a little)

When he reaches for her she reaches back, and when he retracts so does she, and then she laughs at herself a little and says, "Guess it's a good idea for my heroic rescuer to have his hands free, anyway. Let's go."

Oh boy does that remark appear to produce some complicated feelings!

But - he nods.  "Let's go," he agrees.  "Try to stay close, okay?"

"Mhm!"

(He tries to let her make him smile.)

He moves swiftly, smoothly, purposefully.  He stows his gun but his right hand is frequently near his holster.  He checks around corners; it's odd to see someone peering around a corner confidently.

He glances over his shoulder to check that she's following, sometimes; it's probably the least confident gesture he makes, as they are moving.

She trundles along behind him like a good little duckling.

In a small room with three exits, two of which are marked with red spraypaint, Bryce says, "Let's rest here a minute.  We put some distance between us and the scream, and I should check in."

"'kay."

He relays this information through his radio and is acknowledged with clipped professionalism.

A new voice comes through the radio.  "Backlash check, buddy."

Huh. Partner, maybe?

He takes a sighing sort of breath.  "I'm edgy but I'm stable.  All pointed in the same directions, not seriously contemplating anything drastic."

That feels pretty private, but she doesn't exactly have a lot of options for avoiding listening to it. Hopefully he won't mind.

"All right.  See you soon, Cat."

...twisty little grin.  "See you soon, Bird."

Cute?? Cute.

The original radio voice chimes in, "Heads up, we got a report of a monster attack a minute after your engagement.  No casualties, but we think the dungeon knows we're here, and that it can tell the difference between rescues and our guys.  Stay frosty."

"Copy that, I will."

"Spooky," she says quietly to herself.

His head darts to look in her direction.  "Holding up okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good. You?"

"Battle-ready."

" - you're really taking this in stride."

"I'm just kind of a really chill person. And, I don't know, when I think about it this dungeon is kinda weirdly cute? The guy stole your spray paint and scribbled over your graffiti with it... they want us to be lost but they're just not very good at making us be lost..."

Snort.  "I - wasn't gonna tell you this but I wanted to laugh at that."

"It was funny!"

"Well.  You'd have every right to be freaked out but I'm - glad you're not."

"Me too! Seems nicer this way."

Giggle.

"We should - we can take a minute to rest if you need it but if not we should move."

"Let's go then."

"So the significance," he says, as they get moving, "of the thing where they think the monsters can tell the difference between me and you is that in theory they don't want to kill you.  We don't understand how dungeons work but we're confident they don't want their victims dead before they disappear.  But in practice we don't know how they'll react if they encounter an esper and a victim together."

"So if there's a monster coming it's less 'oh no I must run away or be murdered immediately' and more 'stay out of your way but try not to get separated, they're madder at you than they are at me'?"

"Right, exactly.  My job is to kill it while it goes for me instead of you, your job is to let it."

"Sure thing."

When he glances at her he's smiling that twisty little almost-smile again.  "But we're getting close to home, so it's as likely as not we won't run into anything.  Once we're at base camp the SWAT guys will take you out to get checked out with medical - you're almost certainly fine," he adds quickly, "but procedure is everybody out of a first time dungeon gets checked out."

"Makes sense. I can only imagine there's been some dungeon somewhere that makes you forget it ate your earlobes or whatever."

 - helpless snort.  "God, sorry - "

"I was bein' funny on purpose, you can laugh."

"You got a knack," he says.  "They might check you out for psychic effects, yeah, or any unnoticed injuries.  There are dungeons that have effects that stick with you after you leave but this doesn't strike me as one of them."

She grins.

"Yeah it's got its whole spooky vibes thing going on. That it's not very good at."

"First time dungeons - I'm almost certain this is one - are kind of fascinating to me because from time to time it really does seem to me like they have an artistic vision that they're not good enough to execute.  If dungeons just had vibes that - would be weird, but - the idea of a dungeon trying and failing to have a vibe is - there's something to unpack there."

"Dang, you know, now that you mention it you're totally right. That's really something."

"To be clear, this is - not tinfoil hat territory but not remotely settled science either.  It's really ambiguous, and I've seen dungeons do stuff it doesn't seem like they'd do if there were - somebody driving - as well.  But it's something that strikes me about some of them, and this one is one of them."

"Doesn't have to be somebody driving exactly. Like, my dreams also have an artistic vision they have a tough time executing sometimes, you know?"

"I feel like dreams are still - you know what, this is a demanding conversation to have while keeping one eye out for monsters - "

"Good point, should I shut up?"

"I wouldn't have used that exact phrase..."

She giggles softly. "I know, I know."

"But it may be best to - keep both ears out and not just one," he says.

"Makes sense."

His movements are - not less hasty because he was never hasty, only swift.  But they're slower than they were a few minutes ago, the last time they were traveling in silence.  He still keeps one eye on her, glancing over his shoulder, but he might have calmed down a little even without any guiding, somehow.

That's heartening. She brightens a little as she follows him.

At a four-way intersection, looking around the corner, he stops, and holds up his hand to stop her.

He thinks for a moment, then says, "Let's fall back to that last doorway on our right."  (None of the doorways in this dungeon have had actual doors in them, so far, but sometimes there are empty frames set into the wall, instead of simply hallways.)

"—'kay." Back she trundles. She kind of wants to ask what's up but his whole demeanour suggests that she shouldn't make more noise than necessary.

The last doorway on their right leads to a small room, dark, with two exits, and enough space for each of them to stand against an opposite wall.

"Around the next corner," he says, "the hallway's about four times longer than it should be."

"...well I don't love that."

Soft snort.  "Yeah.  It doesn't let out to the side anywhere, only in and out.  We'd be choke-pointed.  It's probably an ambush."

"Do you think it stretched out, or shifted around some other way? Because if it just stretched out then it's the way back but if it shifted around some other way then maybe it's not... should we tell people?"

"I think stretching's more likely," he says, "but either way I'm gonna call it in, yeah - we're not that far out, we could hole up here and ask them to send out a couple SWAT guys, sweep for an ambush."

Thoughtful nod.

"Base camp, I'm a couple minutes out and I just looked down a hallway that's about four times too long," he says, and names some coordinates.  "Could you send out a couple guys to sweep the far end?  Got a feeling we're walking into an ambush."

Kimberly is overall still pretty chill, but she's not as cheerful as she was before. This situation is disquieting.

He clicks the radio button a couple times.

"Base camp, come in."

Uh... huh.

"So what's probably happening is the dungeon has started foxing our radio transmissions," he says.

"And either we're really close by and they can probably find us easily once they figure out something's wrong, or we're not and they can't, huh?"

God damn this girl's such a badass.  "I'd bet on the first one," he says.  "First time dungeons can't do a lot of that type of overtly-magic stuff, and I think if this place could alter its layout more than a little bit it wouldn't need to steal spraypaint and mess with our tags."

"Yeah, makes sense. So, wait it out?"

"Wait it out," he says.  "I'll check the comms every so often, but it's just as likely the first we'll hear of anyone will be somebody showing up in person."

"Time to chat about dungeon philosophy some more? Or should we be keeping our ears open?"

"...hmm," he says.

"I'm gonna tell my power to - ping me - if any dungeon monsters are listening," he says.  "I try to avoid doing that because sudden unexpected jolts of backlash can be - dicey, for me - but I think on this occasion I'll be okay.  Keep it light, keep one ear open, keep your voice low - but yeah, we can talk a little."

She ponders light conversation topics for a moment.

"Do you know about the worm with a hundred butts?"

 - he sporfles, quietly.  "Excuse me?"

"The worm with a hundred butts! Pretty straightforward concept. There's a worm. It's got a mouth at one end. The other end keeps branching. Hundred butts."

"Why... would it do this.  No, I've never heard of this before."

"Nature is beautiful."

"I could see a worm with a hundred mouths... worm with a hundred mouths almost sounds like something dark fantasy, but it's a bit too clunky."

"I have no idea why the worm thought it needed a hundred butts, but I guess that's the beauty of evolution. Nobody needs to think having a hundred butts is a good idea, as long as there's a problem it kinda sorta solves and there isn't a better idea going around."

He giggles.

" - um," he says.  "I actually have an internet girlfriend who occasionally sends me random bug trivia.  She's got a line on bug facts, apparently.  The crunchy kind, usually, not the squishy kind, I'm an exoskeleton guy."

"Oh cute! Heard any good ones lately?"

"There's a type of stick insect," he says, "that lays eggs coated with, like, I guess waxy fat, that ants love to eat.  And the ants take the eggs back to their colonies and eat the coating, but don't eat the eggs, and eventually the eggs hatch and the larva sneak out.  I'd have to distract myself looking them up to remember exactly why they do this.  But it's cool because like - it's almost like they're fruit-producing bugs.  Bugberries."

"Bugberries............." She is delighted.

Chuckle.  "Bugberries!"  He in turn is delighted by her delight.

"It's extra cute that they're stick insects. Correct place for bugberries to come from."

 - snort.  "You know," he says a little ruefully, "I've known this fact for I don't even know how long and I never once thought of that."

"Learn something new every day, I guess!"

"You really are an incredibly chill person."

"Yeah."

"Have - you ever thought about - doing this for a living?"

"Getting kidnapped by dungeons? —no that's obviously not what you meant. Rescuing people from dungeons?? I mean, no?"

A self-conscious half-laugh. "I'm not, like. Good at. Things. Just, tasks. Generally. I'm bad at 'em. I am unreasonably chill and sometimes I can hold up my end of a conversation for ten minutes without sticking my foot in my mouth and I don't think that qualifies me for fancy dungeon rescue jobs."

...he wants to lean on the wall next to her and put an arm around her shoulders but he's not sure how appropriate that would be.

"I kinda used to think I wasn't much good at anything," he says, "and then I lucked out with an esper awakening and it turns out I'm pretty good at this.  And I wasn't nearly as cool under pressure as you are, when I started.  I don't wanna - push, you know your head, but."

"I dunno. I guess I don't feel like it's anything special? But then, that's not exactly fair to people who do get freaked out in dungeons..."

"I've been doing this for coming up on five years and you are definitely something special."

"Your face is somethin' special," she grumbles, and then giggles at her own silliness.

Snort.  He opens his mouth, hesitates, and says: "I'm serious, Kimberly.  I don't know if you could make a career out of it or not, but I'm very impressed with you."

"Well. Okay. I guess that's allowed."

"And for the record, you haven't put your foot in your mouth with me either."

"It'll happen. Just you wait."

"I don't know, I might beat you there."

"We should not make this a competition. That would be silly. ...also I don't believe you but that's me having a hard time not making this a competition."

He sporfles, and seems to go through one or two things in his head that he immediately decides not to say.

" - maybe I should check on the radios," he says after a moment.  "It's been a bit."

"Good plan."

Click.  "Hey base camp, come in, you still having that radio trouble?"

...sounds like that's a yes?

"Yeah, nothing.  Expect they'll be looking for us by now..."

"Yeah."

"I'm runnin' out of fun nature facts that are suitable for polite company."

Snort.  Do you know a lot of - no you probably can't say that, Bryce.  "Worse than the worm with a hundred butts?"  Actually he's not sure that's better.

"The worm with a hundred butts is totally wholesome. He's just a little guy. With a hundred butts. ...okay yes I see how that one is also kinda questionable."

"I guess I know some pretty twisted bug facts."

"Nature is beautiful and also real fucked up sometimes."

"Hmm I got a pretty chill one.  The smallest known insect, 'scalled a fairy wasp, is so small that it doesn't need to flap its wings to fly, it just floats like a mote of dust.  It's got wings but they're not solid, they're just like a cluster of bristles, and they have to use them to kind of swim through the air."

"What! That's so cute! Fairy wasp... how little are they..."

He giggles.  "Less than a millimeter!  I think the smaller ones get so small you can't see them without a microscope."

"Microscopic wasps. Terrifying, yet adorable."

"I don't know that they sting people... their entire bodies are probably smaller than most wasps' stingers."

"Still spooky to imagine one crawlin' on you!"

He could share some additional bug facts at this conversational juncture.  He decides not to.

His decision might be visible, though.

"Somebody's thinkin' spooky bug thoughts," she accuses. "That's a spooky bug thoughts face."

"I won't share if you don't want me to," he says with perhaps slightly excess politeness.

Oh he's being cute and silly...

"Can't be that bad, can it?"

"It's - not the most horrible bug fact I know," he allows.

"Do you know a lot of horrible bug facts?"

He rubs his neck.  "I'd, uh, also eventually run out of ones fit for polite company.  But I don't think," he clears his throat, "insect-hominid commensalism necessarily rises to that level.  If you want to hear what my immediate thought was."

"Insect-hominid what...? Is this gonna be like the time I learned that you eat three spiders a year in your sleep? Are there tiny wasps crawling on people all the time?"

"The spiders are a myth," he says.  " - exactly how bad was that time, because I really can change the subject if you want."

"I made a lot of funny faces but I was fine."

"Well," he says, "they're not wasps, they're mites.  And they're perfectly harmless and friendly little guys and they live in," he clears his throat again, "the hair follicles on your face."

"Eeeeewwwww," she says, giggling softly. "Face bugs! Face bugs!!! I'm switching my favourite imaginary superpower from 'telekinesis' to 'no face bugs'. Much less cool and awesome but, on the other hand: no face bugs."

Twisty grin.  "They're just little guys."

"Little guys who live in your face!!!"

"Just chillin'."

"I don't want 'em," she says with an exaggerated pout.

"If I meet anyone with a line on removing eyelash mites, I will put you in touch."

"That's very kind of you."

"I do my best."

...his face sombers up a little.  "Starting to get a little worried about our scouting party."

"...yeah. Should we keep waiting for 'em? ...if we're waiting for 'em for a really long time should you stop using your power?"

"It's conditional, not constant, it doesn't actually start hiding me until there's something to hide from," he says.  "And I told it not to hide me from you.  I know if something's trying to overhear me if my backlash kicks."

"Oh, okay, cool."

"If we can't get in touch - which I should check again - it might be best to consider ourselves like kidnap victims.  If they sent out parties looking for us around when we noticed the radio was out, they'd've found us by now, I think.  They might just be delayed, and I'd say we should probably try running the gauntlet before we run out of water, but if they've taken this long to find us then the layout's changed enough that we've essentially gotten lost, and we don't want to get more lost."

"Hmm... if we do get moving should we try to mark our path with that can of spray paint?"

"We should.  In fact - "

He unclips one of the spray paint cans from his belt and offers it to her.

"In case we get separated, or something happens to me."

"Ooh, yeah, good plan." She doesn't have as convenient a place to put it as he does, though. Or does she...? She inspects the can and its clipping situation to see how adaptable it looks.

It has a carabiner-like attachment that will adapt fine to belt loops, if she has belt loops?

She totally has belt loops! Score.

Bryce retrieves a pen and notepad from one of his pockets and draws something on a page.  "You'd mark your way like this," he says, and shows it to her: an arrow with a vertical crossbar through the shaft, and the letters KB written on the shaft like it's an "initial here" line.  "Arrow with one bar, to distinguish it from the first set of directions, and your initials so they know who they're following."

"Does the arrow point the way I'm going, or back where I came from?"

" - ah, where you're going, sorry," he says.

"Makes sense! I just wanna be sure."

"It's a really reasonable thing to want to be sure about."

"Yeah."

"All that said, I wouldn't recommend going exploring if you're stuck without me and can't see the directions back to the portal.  If we follow them for a little while, they look legit, and then something happens to me, I'd say keep following them and marking your way; otherwise, look for a defensible position like this one and then stay put.  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the thing to do if you're lost in a dungeon is stay put and wait to be rescued."

"Yeah, makes sense."

He retrieves and gestures with his radio.  "Gonna check on base camp again."

Nod nod.

Click.  "Base camp, this is attempt number three at contact, come in," he says, in a perfunctory sort of voice.

Well. She has a guess about how that's going to turn out.

Sigh.  "Yeah I don't know what I expected."

"Still important to check even if you're pretty sure you know the answer."

Grin.  "See, this is what I'm saying.  I'm supposed to be keeping your spirits up but you keep turning it around on me."

"Well, I ain't gonna apologize for being a ray of sunshine."

Giggle.  "You are the single most upbeat and put-together person I've ever rescued from a dungeon.  It barely even feels like a rescue."

"Dangit, now I've got too much to live up to. If we go get coffee sometime to finish our conversation about dungeon philosophy you'll find out what a complete doofus I am in real life and then where will I be?"

Is there anything at all he can say to this that will maintain his professional ethics.

Okay, stretch goal, is there anything at all he can say to this that will maintain his professional ethics and not make him sound like a complete tool.

"I think if we wind up staying in touch you'll acquit yourself just fine."  Not sure that met the stretch goal, Bryce!!

"Your faith in me is probably misplaced but I appreciate it anyway."

"...I've only known you for like half an hour and I already have such an overwhelming impression of like, this enormous gulf between how cool you seem and how cool you seem to yourself."  He probably should not say how much it makes him want to give her a hug.

"Well I guess you will just have to wait until I'm out of this dungeon to watch me embarrass myself, because I am trying real hard not to say anything super inappropriate before then."

So am I holy shit you cannot say that.  "You're doing just fine."

"Oh good."

He starts to say something else,

and gets about half a syllable out before he stops, and tenses, and raises a finger to his lips.

Welp! Here is a quiet Kimberly.

He scribbles on his notepad briefly and flips it around to show her: BL spike when I made noise. Smth listening

...she nods slowly.

He's standing up straight, now, not leaning on the wall.  He touches a finger to his lips again, briefly.

He raises one hand and snaps his fingers.  (He can snap pretty loudly.)

(He's focused, very intently, but not on something he can see.)

Listening for creatures? And - checking his backlash while he's at it, maybe?

He waits a moment, and snaps his fingers again -

" - it's coming fast, too fast to just be exploring I think - "

She glances around nervously.

The small room they're in has two exits.  To Bryce's left - Kimberly's right - is the door through which they entered.  In the other direction is 30 feet of empty corridor followed by a right turn.

He glances out of the entry door, in both directions, and sees nothing, but there are plenty of hallways branching off; the monster, if it is a monster, doesn't have to be approaching on a straightaway.

There's the sound of rapid footfalls, now, quiet but getting louder.

"Get ready to run, I think," he says.  

She nods firmly.

His gun is drawn.  He's not aiming it, yet - he's got one eye on either exit but he thinks it's coming from his right, around the bend - around the bend any minute, in fact - 

"Think you'll wanna go to your right," he says, "but don't commit yet."

- should they be getting ready to run the gauntlet, or risk getting more lost - 

She keeps an eye out. And gets out her paint can, just in case they get separated while fleeing. A shitty blob of paint squirted at the wall while on the run could be better than nothing, to find her with.

Louder, and louder, and - 

- it does come around the bend, scrambling on six limbs so fast that it piles itself halfway up the wall in the time it takes it to turn toward them.

It will take seconds to close the distance, and open its strange distended six-eyed snout, and screech.

That sure looks like her exit cue!! She's not full-on bolting yet but she is headed briskly in an anti-monsterward direction.

" - right, take every right - "

(She may remember, or immediately notice, that this takes them right down the probably-an-ambush extended hallway.  His instincts are saying run the gauntlet and he doesn't have time for second-guessing.)

"Mhm!" she acknowledges, not looking back.

She'll hear a couple gunshots, another hissing screech, and the sound of his own rapid footsteps following hers.

That's worryingly ambiguous as to how downed the monster is! She risks the backward glance this time.

He's right behind her, close enough he could take her hand.

It's stooped over, crawling after them, not as fast but not slow either.  It's oozing copious amounts of thick, tarry black blood.

Not ideal but certainly could be worse! Okay back to fleeing.

They make the right turn down Ambush Hallway together.  He does in fact reach out to grab her hand, as they're running.

She's still holding the paint can which now in retrospect seems foolish but she can get it into her other hand without breaking stride.

They're gaining distance on their pursuer.  By the time they're almost halfway down the hallway, Bryce spares a glance to check on it; it's only managed to reach the hallway's beginning -

"Wrong way!" she yelps, yanking him to a halt by the hand he's holding.

There's another one, a mad frantic scramble of too many limbs moving too fast, barreling down the hallway toward them, in the direction they were just headed.

" - yeah, ambush," he mutters.

But he thinks his instincts were telling him that - while he can't get them un-lost if they're chased down an unmarked corridor - he can take a couple of these things down.

He plants himself in front of her and takes aim.

She backs off a bit toward the injured one, keeping a wary eye on it.

It growls wetly and drags itself up off the floor, and starts loping toward her, lurchingly, ichor welling in spurts from its wounds with every lunge.  It's closing the distance, focused not on her but on Bryce.

Aaaaaa okay nope! We are not freaking out, we are problem solving!

...pretty big problem!

But -

- it's going for Bryce, right, because it wants to hurt Bryce, and not her. Her it wants to save for later.

And, also, she is still holding a paint can.

She takes another couple of steps, bringing up the paint can on the way with a quick shake for luck, and then as soon as the monster looks to be in range she sprays it directly in its big squiggly face.

Lucky her, it was just opening its mouth to scream.  Instead it hacks, and spits, and works its jaw like a dog trying to swallow peanut butter.

(Three shots, meanwhile, and the ambusher tumbles over with its own momentum.)

He turns to check on Kimberly, and - 

 - laughs, one quick bark before he snaps out firmly, "duck - "

She ducks down and to the side, pressing herself against the wall and looking back to see how Bryce's end of the ambush is doing.

Bang, bang.  Peanut butter muzzle no longer has a muzzle.  It slumps heavily to the ground.

He looks at her - 

"—third guy!!" she says urgently, and for sheer lack of a better idea she's bringing up the paint can to spray that one too.

Third - ?

Third.  As he turns, it pounces, leaping through the air with fangs bared - 

 - it misses her entirely - like it was aiming for something else altogether, though she can't place anything else in the hallway it could have been aiming for - and goes tumbling, clumsily.

She no longer remembers quite why she's doing what she's doing but now is not the time to stop and extensively question her planning. She tracks the monster's face with the paint can and sprays again as it's landing. If it has eyes, she doesn't want it seeing out of them.

With no one else around there's also no social inhibitions to stop her from snapping, "A pretty face is no excuse to be such a meanie pants!"

(It does have eyes!  Three of them are on the side of its face pointed at her.)

Its thrashing, on the ground, as though tangled up in its own limbs - 

Nothing in particular happens.

It happens three times, in quick succession, and it's loud enough to leave her ears ringing.

It stops moving.

 - he gasps.

His breathing is fast, panting, ragged.

"—oh fuck, are you okay?"

He squirms out from under the corpse - he's slick, soaked, with black ichor - 

 - he looks at her and flinches.

Nnnnot ideal. Okay.

We are not freaking out, we are problem solving.

"You okay?" she says again, more gently.

Oh fuck god dammit she's smiling that fucking smile at him, he's scum - he is not okay he botched this so comprehensively - 

- he snatches his radio off his shoulder and starts almost babbling into it.  "Base camp please fucking come in I'm backlashed I'm compromised - "

She's going to guess the radio is not in fact working again.

He swears under his breath and clips it back onto his shoulder and runs his fingers through his hair.

So probably not, no.

He's still holding his fucking gun.  He drops places it on the ground next to him and only then allows his hand to dart away from it like he's been bitten.

(He should be pulling it together but he cannot believe he allowed this to happen, he can't believe he let himself get this backlashed and he can't believe he looked at Kimberly over and over again with that fucking smile on his face while he was supposed to be rescuing her - )

...she clips her paint can back onto her belt loop.

"I think we better keep going," she says. "At least far enough to find a better place to sit."

" - yeah."  He - shuts his eyes and takes a breath and picks up and holsters his gun, and stands up.  "Shit.  Sorry.  Yeah."  (The fingers of his left hand are still tangled in his hair.  His breath is still coming quickly.)  "Uh - "

Okay everything else aside he does still actually have to get them out of here - 

- he looks up and down the hallway - 

- he didn't fucking miss another fucking dungeon monster, okay.  He wishes Toby were here, because he is selfish and incompetent.

"Our best bet is still to follow the arrows," he says, looking at the floor.  (His tone of voice kind of suggests he expects to be shouted at for the temerity of giving her any kind of instruction at all, as though he was the one to kidnap her and he's only just now gotten cold feet on keeping her locked in with the dungeon monsters.)

"Yeah," she agrees. Whatever's going on with him - she probably shouldn't pry, right? - it looks like he has it handled well enough to be going on with, and you can't solve backlash just by being reassuring, she's pretty sure... but she can't quite stop herself from saying, "It's okay. I'm okay."

(That makes him shut his eyes, tightly, and shiver, just for a moment.)  "Okay.  I - thank you."  (He shakes his head.)

He - starts walking.  (He's not going to ask to hold her hand again because Jesus fucking Christ.)

He looks so troubled and she has so little idea of how to untrouble him, except to get him out of the dungeon and back to his partner, wherever they are. She follows along.

...she really is okay, though. Maybe he's onto something, with the whole 'that's very cool of you' thing. That was kind of an objectively terrifying situation, and she thinks she maybe mostly didn't fuck it up! Perhaps he didn't even hear her saying incredibly embarrassing things to that monster before he killed it!

He's quiet, still, but his movements are more darting, his shoulders more hunched.  After a moment he glances back at her and picks up the pace.

When they get to the end of the hall, he marks off an arrow on the wall, the same direction as the way-back arrows, in the style he showed her, and labels it:

KB
ShL

She nods thoughtfully.

There's supposed to be a marking on one wall any time the path could be ambiguous - any fork, any empty doorway - but almost immediately, round the next corner, they come to a doorframe set into one wall with no arrows at all.

"This doorway wasn't here before," he says dully, and takes a steadying breath.  "So it did more than just the long hallway."

"Yeah."

She glances around. Is this a good place to sit and wait?

Not especially.  The doorway leads to another tangle of hallways, with plenty of unmarked blind corners.

(Suppose they find a nearby spot to hunker down and never get found and she dies and its his fault.  Suppose they keep going on his hunch that he can find the directions again and get more lost and she dies and its his fault.  Either possibility seems intimately real and intimately terrifying - )

Okay, he can't be doing this type of shit, he has to get them out of here.  He takes another breath and runs his fingers through his hair again.

"I think," he says slowly, "I do recognize coming down this hallway the other way, apart from the door."

"So, leave the doorway alone, keep going for now?"

Nod.  "We have to keep moving anyway," he says.  He marks off another arrow: they did not choose to enter this doorway.  On, round the next corner.

She follows quietly. It seems like he's holding together better now, but... she's still kinda worried for him.

Round the corner, there are more tangled hallways, but these ones have arrows, for the most part.

They should be there any minute, but the hallways are too long, there are extra diversions, some of the arrows are blotted out; it slows their progress.  At one point he does take them a few turns down the wrong hallway, and - after he takes a (brief, restrained) moment to silently scream at himself inside his head for it - they backtrack, marking out their own arrows.  (Not with scribbles, like the monsters had done, but with diagonal cross-hatches.)

Kimberly has a lot of time to think while they're walking.

Dungeons don't change themselves willy-nilly, right? Especially the small ones? But this one shifted around a bunch, in a lot of different little ways. So either it's been playing dumb with them and it's a lot scarier than it looks... or there's something to it, something that makes it less of an investment than it looks. Maybe the monsters can move walls around?? No, that doesn't sound right at all...

" - I recognize this," he says,  "we're getting close."

He glances back, when he realizes he's started walking faster.

"Ooh." She perks up and hurries along, following a little closer behind/beside him.