Nod. "No, I think we're good. I'll start directing you when you're through the first opening." There's only one apparent exit from this room (not counting the portal): a flatter stretch of glass in gold and magenta patterns, lit from behind, currently moving slowly across the wall and downward.

"Catch you later, then."  She throws out a sloppy salute, then performs a comms check.  After confirming good comms, it's time.

She looks at her racquet, looks at the portal, and secures the racquet to a quick-release on her LBE.

How do I completely destroy this piece of dungeon glass?

The vision shows her gloved fist smashing through the glass wall.  No evidence of glassquitos just as yet.  She rejects the proposed future for backlash efficiency reasons, but does put her fist through the glass.  It shatters extremely satisfyingly.

What meets her beyond the stained-glass palisade?

A glass-encrusted tunnel stretches straight out in front of her, sloped slightly upwards and spinning at a different angle from the portal room. No other doorways are yet visible along its length.

Meanwhile, she settles into a stable position, Mai wrapped snugly around her. She has more than a decade of practice, by now; she hardly needs to think about what she's doing. She takes a deep breath in, and as she releases it, she lets herself expand.

She is a hollow space, roughly-spherical and lumpy-sided, in constant motion, containing her own small human body and a few others. She expands further, aiming along the corridor that has just been breached, reaching into spaces beyond. This one, and this other one, are filled with swirls of little moving things; and -- aha -- in this one, the shape of another human.

She stops there, holds herself steady; brings a thread of awareness back to her human body, and speaks. "In about 50 meters, there should be an opening to take on your right."

"Five-zero meters, opening on my right.  Got it."  It would have been nice to know what color it'll be, but maybe there's no way to tell.  She's not that annoyed about it, and even if she were annoyed about it, it's the kind of thing that would have been vaguely vexing even at zero backlash.  It's fine.

She carries on through the disorienting dungeon, counts off about sixty paces, and calls in.  "I should be here.  What'm I looking for?"

Alas, Kendim has no idea of the color of things she senses with her power. Also: "It's not quite there yet -- there's a space merging with yours, you should start to see it connecting just ahead of you, down low."

Indeed, between two crystal-outcrops of glass, a lighter spot can be seen. A smooth patch on the wall is spreading, pulling the glass around its edges into its translucent surface as though melting. The new pane of glass grows gradually from the size of a palm to the size of a head to something that could easily fit a human, if the barrier were to be broken.

(It's in three different shades of blue.)

"Copy.  Think I found it."  She takes a moment to admire it, then checks to see what happens if she destroys it.

It shatters -- and the shards of the darkest blue come together in midair, forming into several winged clusters, and then fly straight for her face.

The doorway has stopped growing at a fairly generous size, and its surface is divided neatly into thirds by color; it would be tricky but not impossible to break through while leaving the dark blue intact.

Perfectly acceptable future.  She rejects it.  Instead, she readies her racquet and baton.  She'll find out whether or not the racquet works in a few moments.  She smashes the door with the baton, including the dark blue section.

CRASHtinkletinkletink.

Sharps go zooooooom for the esper.

She doesn't bother with her power, not for the first five.  It's exactly like swatting a slow, slightly-drunk hummingbird.  The last one she leaves alive.

She's glad that they don't have the agility of a mosquito.  Too much mass, probably.  The final one is snatched out of the air.  It struggles in her fist, but it's smaller than a robin.  It's not going anywhere.

"A swarm would probably be okay but I'd rather not do it on purpose."

"In that case, once you're in this next room, you'll want to avoid the exit on the right. The one on the left --" focus on the hollow spaces, how they're connected and the pattern of their movement, what it means for upcoming connections -- "it's a longer path but it should get you to the victim. This room and another, then a corridor."

She listens to Kendim's advice, absentmindedly poking the glassquito.  It's struggling to get her, even now.  Fortunately, it seems that her gloves are sufficient to protect her from the edges of its wings.  The proboscis is enough to mar her gear, which makes it a potential problem.  "Take this next room, take the next left.  Got it."

She punctuates her sentence by crushing the glassquito in her hands, and then dropping the remains on the floor.  The tink-tink-tink noises as they hit the floor are so satisfying.

"Racquet works great, by the way.  Good tip."  She follows Kendim's directions, glancing around suspiciously for more of the little glassquito bastards.  It's so frustrating how my ability to wonder at how cool these dungeons look is the first thing to go.

"Glad to hear it." The door on the left breaks with no fanfare; the room beyond it has only one exit. "Once in the corridor, go right about 80 meters, and watch for monsters. There's not a full swarm, just a couple strays."

"Head in the corridor, turn right eight-zero meters.  Got it.  If they wind up with a capture setup, let me know.  They're not too hard to catch."  If you're a combat esper, anyway.  Carol takes the prescribed route, smashing glassquitos along the way.  She toys with one of them for about twenty seconds, trying to get a feel for their movements.

The glassquitos aren't real mosquitos.  True mosquitos are slower and stupider.  These are closer to unusually-intelligent bloodthirsty butterflies.  Thankfully they're not as agile as bats, or she'd be having an issue.

It'd be real nice if I could use a grenade without summoning more of these things.

"Will do." And then, when it becomes true: "First victim is behind the door just ahead of you. Currently they're clear of it by about a meter."

"Copy."  She taps carefully on the glass with her baton's tip.  Calls out to the vic inside, "Hey, can you hear me?"  Pause, no response.  "I don't know if you can hear me at all, but I'm about to get you out, okay, hon?  Be just a jiffy.  If you can hear me, back away from this door, okay?"  Annoying how I can't take my time on this one, if I wait too long the entrance is just going to rotate away from me.

It takes her about half a second in reality and three seconds counterfactually to find a way to break the glass without awakening a swarm of glassquitos in the process.

The victim, a chunky-looking teenaged boy, just about goes through the ceiling.  "Aaah!"  Oh.  Rescue.  Uh.  Wow, she's pretty.  "Uh, h-hi?"

"Hey, hon.  You doing alright in there?"  Ignore the shriek.  And the blush.  Kid's got enough going on that I don't need to torment him about it.  "Ready to get gone?"

"Y-yeah, I'm ready.  You know the way out?"  He clambers his way around the shards of glass, carefully picking his way over the shards of glass.  He's wearing thin-soled running shoes, not really suitable for crunching through bare glass.

"I will in a minute, this place keeps rearranging."  She calls back into base camp, confidence laced through her voice.  "Got my man in tow, Kendim.  Where d'you want us?"  She gives the kid a smile.  Poor guy.  He's had a rough day, might as well be nice to him.

The hollow spaces spin slowly around each other; connections break and new ones promise to form. "Continue in the direction you were going for... 70 meters, then wait for a door. --The corridor you're in is splitting. Keep to the left-side channel."

The tunnel is wider now. A long ridge of glass-crystals is starting to rise along what's currently the floor, and another on the ceiling.

Whoah......