Well, this isn't exactly what he signed up for, but it's not like he's afraid of hard work.  His strength is best-used in bursts, but he's got to do both bursts and leave his power up at a light level.  The light level is to protect his ops from brambles, while the bursts are to move boulders.  Normally, they'd be using airbags and compressors to lift heavy loads.  But for some reason, the brambles are interfering with that.  Inconvenient of them.

"Okay.  On the count of three, I'm going to augment you.  Then I'm going to count down from three, and the augment comes off.  Everyone ready?"

"Got it, Sleeping Beauty.  You heard the man, get in positions!  James, you've got the chock?"

"Got it, sarge."

Tim snorts.  "One, two, three, lift!  Three, two, one, drop!"

And like clockwork, the boulder is shifted by a team of brawny DRT ops, then chocked against the side of the path.  Good enough to get past.  "Alright, dwarves, let's go!"  If they want to nickname me, I can nickname them right back.

The rest of the day proceeds mostly along those lines.  Tim's not naturally-suited to scouting, unless you count recon by fire.  But he can clear lanes with a group of four all day, especially if he's only really using his power in six-second burst.  Or occasionally longer when a particularly nasty bramble catches someone in the face - but Jensen won't even have a scar to come home with.  One of the girls razzes Jensen about keeping his babyface for the rest of his life, and they soldier on.

Botany doesn't cross paths with him much, but she isn't hard to spot; not that many middle-aged hijabi dungeon espers, even if she wasn't on the agency pamphlets.  She's going straight from victim to victim, unwrapping them from the briars and extracting any stubbornly embedded thorns before handing them off to a rotating crew of DRT escorts to lead them out.  She's not using her power in much longer bursts, maybe a minute for the worst-tangled ones, but ducks out for a visit to the guiding tent in between clusters a few times. 

And then an outlying squad finds the core, a full two hours earlier than even the optimistic estimate and with only three vics left to extract.  (It was hidden under a boulder that looked exactly like every other boulder, but a particularly eagle-eyed op noticed the way the nearby trees were arching almost protectively over it.)

Could've used a sensor for this one.  But really, you'd want a sensor for all of them.  Ah well. "Alright, team.  Anyone who got injured, on me!  I've got plenty in the tank, don't be shy!  Work out amongst yourselves who needs it most, I'll take up to ten at a time!"

They're in the process of evaccing the dungeon.  The civvies are out, and the only ones left are the looters.  Dirt, plants, rocks on the ground.  One of them had convinced Tim to carry a boulder out, and it had fit with the power of enhanced strength making up for terrible posture.  It looked like a demented game of Limbo.

One of the medics ushers Tim and his gaggle of variously injured agents through recovery-and-triage towards the medical tent- the real-world cordon is somewhat awkwardly squashed into the grocery store loading dock where the portal opened, but it's no worse than any other city dungeon and better than some.  About half the space has been cleared out and set up as a recovery room to Tim's usual specifications, mostly with DRT-standard cots and lawnchairs but someone has hurriedly sourced some floor pillows since he saw it on the way in.

In addition to the five DRT ops who got more or less shoved forward by their fellows as worst-off, they've got two eye injuries, a broken shoulder, and a pregnant woman who freely acknowledges she's only barely scratched but wants to make really really sure the dungeon didn't somehow hurt the baby and is willing to wait until last if it means she gets seen by the healer (hovered over by her even-more-anxious young husband).

Ahhh, shit.  Here we go.  "Ma'am, I'm really sorry, but my power hasn't been tested on anyone in, er, your condition.  At some point we plan on doing animal trials, but I can't in good conscience treat you at the moment."  Please don't blow up like the last one, please don't blow up like the last one........

Depends?  Did the last one stare at him looking shocked and betrayed, stammer "but- but I-", and burst into tears?

Her husband wraps his arms around her, looking bewildered and helpless, and she sobs into his shoulder until a medic disengages from her current patient and comes over to chivvy them out.  "There, there now, you've heard for yourself- I know it's been an awful day, but they've come up clean on every poison we can test for, we can help you make an appointment for an extra ultrasound if you like, but the best thing you can do right now is just get some rest..."

Well, she's not screaming or taking a swing at me, so.  Mission...accomplished?  Maybe once I'm in the black I'll get around to sourcing a pregnant labrat or something.  Feels kind of gross, but it's...better than human testing, for sure.  Errgh.  He shivers a little.  "Okay!  I'm going to go through my checklist!  I know some of you have heard it before, but it bears repeating!  You will be stronger than you think you are! Do not move more than necessary.  You will..."  The usual list of disclaimers comes to him naturally and - hm.  Is that a fellow esper he spies?

Yup, Botany has flopped in a chair set up for her out of the way in a corner, talking on the phone and waving away a medic with an IV kit.  She's shed her jacket somewhere and is in a cooling vest and long-sleeved athletic top, patchy with sweat.  "I'm fine, I'm fine, thank you-"  She shoves an ice pack into the elastic of her cap and switches back to esper-quiet and Spanish for her phone call, "honey, I'm stable, you don't need to- yes I know you left already-"  she cautiously sips a blue esperade, "don't you dare override the car, you know you're a worse driver backlashed than you think you are.  I'm barely at 102, I will be fine- I said barely- I know, I know you are.  Love you.  Yeah- yeah all right, I can ask.  Love you too.  Bye."

And she gets up to thread her way through to Tim, esperade in one hand and a basin tucked under her arm.  "Hey- nice to get a chance to properly meet, after all that.  I'm Nadiya."

As she gets closer, Tim calls out for a pause.  Leave just a whisper of power, so the timer doesn't start ticking again.  It's a bad habit, but they won't know that.  Phones are retrieved.  "Good afternoon, ma'am.  I'm Tim.  I hear you're the reason I don't have as many patients as usual."

"And the DRT and the medics, but thank you."  She smiles with a little wave of her free hand.  "Ah- are fistbumps the done thing, now?"

"Oh, ah, yes'm."  Fist?  Hey, that's not bad!

She gives him a small smile.  "Better than medium for me- you too?  Would you like to hold hands while you work?  My partner's on her way back but it'll be a bit still, and she worries."

"Yes'm, if you don't terribly mind.  My, uh, partner is at home, and if you're around I can do more healing before I have to give up.  Did you hear my whole spiel already, about how my power works?"  He won't initiate a handhold, but he'll - sort of offer it?

"Mmhmm- oh, let me go grab my chair first, I'll be right back-"  she sets the esperade and basin down near the foot of Tim's chair and returns with her folded lawnchair under one arm and a small cooler in the other.  "You heal by sharing your regen, and it comes with durability and strength, right?"  She gets the chair set up next to his, contemplates a moment, and rolls her sleeve up past the elbow.  "Does it hit everyone in a radius, or can you pick and choose?"

"I can pick and choose, but after a few accidents, I mostly don't anymore.  People don't realize their own strength - you put your finger through your phone, I had a guy squeeze the arm of his wheelchair and bend it, that kind of thing.  No point risking an accident.  I'll cover you with it, if you're ready?  Should help with anything you've picked up, although it's pretty bad for old injuries."

"Mm, so I shouldn't've come over here without checking first, sorry about that.  Give me just another moment then-"  she takes another careful sip of esperade, swaps out the cold pack on top of her head for a fresh one from the cooler and adds another on the back of her neck, then settles into her chair and offers her arm.  "Ready."

"Afraid all my injuries are old at this point- you're the one with that rehab clinic up in Montpelier, right?  Paige mentioned."

"Okay.  Power coming on in three!  Two!  One!"  It feels exactly the same.  Tim wraps his hand carefully around Nadiya's.  Ahhhh.  "Yes'm.  It's better on recent ones, older ones do improve at all.  I'd give it to everyone, if I could, but."  Little shrug, careful not to jostle Nadiya too much.

Her hand is fever-warm and tacky with sweat under the guiding sensation, and she very carefully adjusts position until her forearm is lying alongside his for maximum contact without sharing a chair.  "But the injuries keep coming faster than you can keep healing, and you're one person who needs to eat and sleep and talk to other humans about not-work and ever just take a whole day off to lie on a beach and do nothing at all."  

Whoah, she's got issues.  "And I run dungeons, too.  Uh, are you okay?  You're a little..."  He actually scoots and delicately sandwiches both of his forearms around hers.

"Mm, I'm sorry, I shouldn't stereotype."  She huffs a quiet laugh.  "It's- something I've seen a lot, in new espers with a particularly useful or specialized power- was one myself too, once- you feel like you're the only one who can do something and that means you have to do it.  Nearly burned myself out with it before I met my wife and switched agents, so- I'm maybe in too much of a hurry to warn folks off it."  She nods at their joined hands.  "I'd blame the backlash but mine's just physical, I run a fever."

"Well, I mean, I don't - I don't have to, right?  I could always just make money for a year and retire.  But it'd be pretty messed up to have the ability to save people or heal them and then just not bother.  Er, how bad's the fever, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Mm.  Just- remember you'll help more people in the long run if you do it sustainably?"  She shrugs.  "This is about medium for me, it spikes at first and then increases more slowly.  Enough I'm glad you're around, but I would've done another hour or two poking around the tree roots before I needed a break if they hadn't found the core already."