"Could be a lot worse, though, I read about one online where the dungeon keeps making you think you're escaping, but you're just moving to a different section of the dungeon.  This one's not so bad if you can't be stabbed and have the world's best 4D navigator."

"Aren't there 4D espers?" says Yellin' Fella.

"There are espers whose powers work omnidirectionally, including sensors. They need guiding time and they're not very good at interpreting what they see," says Cricket. "And the sensors usually don't double as mobility and the mobility usually don't double as sensors."

"Think of it like this, it's the difference between a picture and a movie.  We see pictures, Cricket sees the movie."  Thank you for the comparison before, Cricket, it's a great one.

Cricket did not make that analogy and would in fact call this one a stupid thing to say but he's being professional. He leads them all the rest of the way to the portal where Twisted Ankle can be handed off to medics and Yellin' Fella can never impose himself on their ears again.

Once more into the breach.

Tim would argue, were he aware of the narration, that the comparison of a photo to a hologram is close enough to being the same, and that it's a great analogy.  Except for his preexisting commitment to Not Piss Off The Kitty.  Because of that commitment, he's not willing to argue with Cricket for anything short of trying to save someone's life, even in a narrative aside.

Once more.  He's really going to feel this one in the morning.  He only passed Stats because he was on the wrestling team, but he's incredibly resentful of the statistics that the average dungeoneer does two per day.  He's been in this thing for hours now!  And if he has to dig out every snowdrift in this forsaken mountain vale, he might have to come back tomorrow.

But he's an aspiring professional, so.  Back to it.

Dungeon check: still full of knives!

It sure fucking is. Swat swat swat bite. "They really don't taste like ladybugs." Rip tear claw. Here is a patient old man who had a deck of cards in his dungeon prep kit and has been amusing himself with Solitaire.

"Hey, sir.  We'll get you out in a few minutes.  D'you think you can walk okay?"  He has to bite back the comment, 'Black six on red seven', which isn't easy.  But he does it.

"I can walk but not climb. Arthritis in my hands," says the guy, accented but fluent. He scoops up his cards and holds out one arthritic hand for Cricket to sniff. Cricket considers this warily and then sniffs him.

ARGH I should have tried that.  So much for 'he's not a cat', Bill!  "That's Cricket, he's our dungeon navigator.  He's doing all the real work, I'm just here to do heavy lifting.  I can get you down this bit, then you should be able to walk out okay?"

Cricket leads them with two shoves to shallow the slopes and one to get around some thorny shrubbery. Solitaire Man walks but has to lean on Tim for sections with iffy footing, loose scree or dead knives scattered from their previous treks.

He's not stupid so bad at analyzing cost-effectiveness that he wants to try to fix this poor guy's arthritis.  But he's tempted to.  He could do it, if he had nothing else to do with his time for two months straight.  But he does.  Solitaire Man can have as much shoulder as he wants, in lieu of dedicated healer time.

And he's out. Next vic is a lady who was kidnapped in her fuzzy bathrobe and fuzzy slippers.

He gives her a quick paranatural checkup to make sure she's not suffering from frostbite.  She isn't.  Honestly, this whole dungeon is warmer than it has any right to be, considering the snow peaks.  Dungeons.  It's probably not even real snow.  "Here, we'll get you out of here soon enough, you'll be warming up in just a few..."

It's a substantial temperature gradient but the vics are for the most part below the snowcaps where it is nippy, not literally freezing. "You couldn't bring me some sweatpants or something?" she grouses, while Cricket pulls them wunder a rocky outcropping so they don't have to duck.

"I don't think they would have survived the trip.  The knives don't care about you, but they don't like me very much."  He gestures expansively at his current state of attire, which can be generously described as 'deshabille' and honestly described as 'raggedy'.

"It’d still be an improvement!"

"Well, it won't be too long before you're out.  They have changes of pants on the other side of the portal.  Incentive to keep moving, huh?"  I can't be too upset about it, I was in pretty rough after that expedition Sara and I were on.

"Is the portal at least somewhere tucked away and private?" she says despairingly.

"No," says Cricket. "Scaffolding above a bodega. They didn't even stop the bodega from opening." New York City has to be more conservative about how much radius it gives low-breach-risk dungeon perimeters. Giving every dungeon a hundred feet would shut down the entire city every day.

Oh, great.  She's about to upskirt everyone.  Tim is extremely tired of wardrobe malfunctions.  "Cricket, would you mind popping through and asking someone to throw a pair of spare pants through the portal?  I would do it, but.  I can't exactly leave you in here."  Do not ask for or comment on her size.  No matter what you guess, you will guess wrong.

"If they have those why didn't you get them?" Cricket asks, with a look that makes it extremely obvious that he can see around every stitch that's left of Tim's pants and considers this an enormous burden.

"At the rate this dungeon goes through gear, we'd run out of pants.  It's why I asked for them to throw it through, the knives don't care about, ah, equipment, just humans.  Mostly."

"Fine," Cricket grumbles, and he flaps away.

"Thank you, sir," he calls after the kitty.  He's such an asshole, but he really is nice if you dig a little.  Sometimes a lot.  Hopefully it's not long before he's back?

He’s back in thirty seconds having not left the dungeon. "Hey, how are you sure you’ll notice me before the knives do?"

"My power acts in the double-digit millisecond range and it covers healing as well as durability, if you somehow get scraped."  Also that would have been a smart question to ask six hours ago.