"Hm.  If I'd realized it was selective, I might have requisitioned a bullhorn.  I guess that wouldn't help, victims need to be able to communicate back as well."

"Yeah, people can only yell so loud. Would be nice to have sensor support in this mess, but you get what you get."

"I think that in almost every dungeon that isn't just kill everything inside iiiiiiiiit!"

How is their front-to-back balance while crabwalking sideways?  A wildly yawing cargo dungeon would like to know.

Espers have good balance but not quite good enough to completely avoid stumbling when trying to walk sideways with their hands constrained.

"Son of a -"

OhshitBUFF

You don't have to stumble far to hit a steam pipe in this dungeon.  Whisssttttttttt, the steam hisses out.  It doesn't feel bad.  It's definitely warm.  It's definitely burning.  But it's not doing any damage to either of them.

She eeps and flinches back by reflex. But has the willpower not to flinch back too far.

"Shit!"  Tim ducks down, trying to get away from the steam without giving up his handhold.  It's not the easiest thing in the world.

The pipe jostles itself back into alignment after a moment.  They're a bit warmer than they were, but they're no longer actively being steamed.

Well now she's damp. Annoying. Also her shirt is clinging a little bit. (it's not thin enough to be see through when wet because she's not stupid but it's definitely clinging).

"it'd be really nice if there was a pattern to that."

"If my DRT team is to be believed, dungeons do that whenever the worst possible moment is."  Hey, that's a closed airlock.  What's on the other side?

An endless, benighted ocean.  There are very good safety railings, thankfully.  A peek outside reveals a dilapidated cargo ship.  It looks like there are dozens of crates stacked on the outside, and some of them have come rather badly astray.

"Plausible. Round the outside then?" And steer clear of the suspicious boxes but that doesn't need to be said one hopes.

There's a creeeaaaak, from behind Meghan.

She's not used to not reacting to being steamed but she's very used to not reacting strongly to noises by this point. She's just going to calmly look over her shoulder and also attempt to monitor her backlash rate to guess if anything is trying to illegally perceive them at this moment. Covering somebody else makes this trickier because it's a background trickle of backlash but it should be doable. Does involve letting go of Tim's hand just for a second. There's also no guarantee that the noise corresponds with anything that is trying to perceive of course (she's not really a proper sensor) but they can figure that out.

Nope.  It was just the wind.  Nothing's behind her.

Unless...?

Tim makes an inquiring sort of chirp noise at her.  "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I was trying to figure out if something was trying to look at us but I don't think so. Just creepy noises again."

"I'll probably be desensitized to those after another year of this.  Hm.  I think it might make sense to climb to the top of the ship, so we report dungeon size, and maybe see if there are victims on the topdeck?"

"It's not a good idea to ignore them completely but you do have to learn not to freak out. Yeah, let's do that."

"Okay, cool.  Hm.  How do we...?"  He offers Kuroko his left arm while looking up.

Well, jumping is a bad idea.  What if the shift yaws and you fall?  You'd go into the drink, never to be seen again.  There's a fallen crate you could probably clamber up, then you could grab the railing of the next deck up.  Then you could...climb a pipe that leads to the top of it, for some reason?  Better hope it's strong enough for you...if it fell, you'd surely perish.

She'll take his arm.

"Do you trust that pipe? cause I sure don't."

"Not with the two of us.  Uh, not that you're - just, it's twice as much.  I could throw you up and jump the next bit, but that's a bit risky if the ship rolls while one of us is in the air."