Sinkhole can avoid that!  It's known in certain esper circles that she has a split-second of precognition, and that's enough to tell what's behind Door #2.  She might not be a true danger precog like Foreshadow, for this she's quite sufficient.

When she arrives on-scene, she's dressed practically.  DRT-standard helmet, four braids.  Long-sleeved and reinforced clothing, a close relative of motorcycle leathers.  She's wearing her load-bearing equipment, but doesn't have a bulletproof plate in today.  Wrong threat profile in this dungeon, she's more likely to be papercut to death.

Never thought I'd look like a tactical biker chick, but.  Here we are.  She's been assigned a sensor, today.  Joy of joys.  Kendim, where are you hiding?  Do I need a sensor to locate my sensor?

Here's Kendim! A dungeon like this really calls for a sensor to stick around, not just pop their head in to draw out a map that will be obsolete a few minutes later, so she's been getting a thorough briefing before settling in by the entrance for the long haul.

With her is her partner, fidgeting a bit and keeping more of an eye on her surroundings. She's the one who spots Sinkhole approaching, and nudges Kendim about it.

Well, those two look like espers.  She likes the look of the cute redhead, although she's really not looking for anything major right now.  She probably should be though.

"Kendim, I presume?  And I don't think I saw your name in the summary I got..."  She smiles easily at the redhead, offering a hand to shake?

"I'm Mai! I won't be helping with the dungeon itself, I'm just here to keep her functional," she says with a half-nod toward Kendim.

Handshake, and -- "A solid meh, for me."

Kendim nods in confirmation to Sinkhole's question. "And you're Sinkhole, yes?" she asks in turn, offering her hand.

She nods to Mai with a wry little grin.  "Meh here as well, I'm afraid.  Shame, really."

Then she reorients to Kendim.  "I sure am.  Lovely to meet you both."  Handshake and...pretty much the same.  "Not much here.  Oh well."

"Same on both counts." She shrugs. "I think we're ready to go in, now?" There's an aerial work platform set up next to the portal, currently lowered to ground level.

"I am.  Is there anything I need to know about the dungeon that didn't make it into the briefing I got?  It's just flying glass bugs, the rooms keep changing, doors might or might not open up into a trap full of glass bugs and the glass shards sometimes come after you?"

"That's most of it, though also the footing is bad. That won't matter for those of us at base camp --" she gestures at the platform -- "but I would think it won't help with rescues. I'll be directing you through comms, and I'll be able to tell if a route leads into a swarm or not. -- If the swarm is already formed, I mean to say. How much should I prioritize avoiding them? If the only route to a victim leads through a swarm, would it be worth going through it, or should we wait till the dungeon opens up a clear path?"

"I'm tougher than normal, but it costs me backlash to tank stuff.  We'll see how scary one of them is to me and figure it out from there.  If they go through my clothes, I probably don't want to be around a swarm of them."  She unclips the baton from her vest and fiddles with it absentmindedly.

She nods. "Very reasonable." She steps onto the platform, joining a few others. She's not carrying much, and dressed in guiding clothes rather than anything very protective, but in theory that should be fine if she's staying by the entrance.

Mai pats at her hip to make sure she has her emergency water gun, and also grabs what looks like a tennis racquet before skipping to follow.

Backlashed Carol is always irritated that sensors stay at the entrance to the dungeon.

Original Flavor Carol is aware that Backlashed Carol is actually a colossal bitch about literally everything, and is happy to have sensor support in whatever form is available.  "Oh, do those racquets actually work on the bugs in here?"

"They can definitely smash 'em, if you hit 'em!" she says cheerfully. "I won't actually use this one, hopefully, it's just in case. Dunno if it makes sense to carry one the whole way, but there are a couple more if you want to try it." She points them out.

She pauses for a second to consider, then re-clips her baton and grabs one.  "I'll give it a try.  I'll let'cha know how it goes."

"Yeah!"

And once they're all equipped, they can get lifted up to the portal on the work platform, and slowly moved through it and into the dungeon itself.

The benefit of the platform, as small as it is, is immediately clear. The room around them is sizable and free of monsters, but the sides of it are constantly in motion, wall slowly turning to become floor which becomes wall which becomes ceiling. Should be interesting to traverse.

"Whoah....that's wicked neat."  Never would have gotten this along with my Bachelor's.  "I know I read it in the report, but seeing it's different.  No wonder I get a sensor today."

"Some dungeons would be very fun to visit, if it was by choice," she agrees, looking around. "We're lucky this one is small enough for me to cover it from the portal."

Carol slips on her gloves, and absentmindedly checks over her kit as she gapes in awe conducts a thorough visual inspection of the dungeon.  "Half a kilo, of range, right?  And does the dungeon have a couple levels, or is it basically just flat?"

"Yes, half a kilometer from me. It doesn't cost as much backlash for me to maintain it as it does to reach out in the first place, so I'll be covering you most of the time." She's always liked that aspect of her power; she can get a thorough feeling for the shape of things, rather than just quick impressions. "There are levels, openings might not lead directly sideways. It seems like the slopes aren't steep."

"Got it.  Did the capture gear come through yet?  I know the eggheads were wanting a few for study."

"Oh, good -- I don't know, I haven't noticed it --" she (manages not to use her power to check, and) glances at Mai, who shrugs.

"Don't sweat it too much.  We'll worry about it after we get the core."  I'd really rather catch them when I'm not pissed at them, but it won't matter if we don't get the core.  After all, they could grow to the size of houses if this one ever comes back and they're still kicking.  "Anything else we need to do before we get started, then?"

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......

"Seven zero meters, take the left fork.  Got it.  C'mon, man.  We'll get you out of here soon enough.  What's your name?"

"H-Hugo.  It is my pleasure to meet you."  The stock phrase from his English class rolls off his tongue, a testament to the power of brute memorization.  "And yourself?"

"I go by Sinkhole when I'm dungoneering.  Got to have a little mystery, right?  What were you doing before you got kidnapped?"  Unfortunately, they tend to freak if they don't have something to keep their mind off the fact that they got dungeonnapped.  Kind of a pain keeping 'em calm, but.

"Uh, I was going out for a jog.  I'm trying to get in shape for a marathon..."  He rambles for a few minutes, the stammering gradually going away as he gets more comfortable with his rescuer.

She cuts him off as they get to the branching tunnel.  "One second, hon.  Gotta get directions."  Shame I don't have a sensor right in front of me to just point where I need to go.  "Okay, I'm in the left-hand tunnel.  How long 'til I need to change direction?"

"You're almost there; after four more meters, stop and wait, and a door should form in... about a minute."

"Thanks, Kendim.  Appreciate it.  So, Hugo, have you ever heard of creatine?"

Hugo has not heard of creatine but he'd indicate a willingness to try supplementing with hydrofluoric acid if this girl would give him the time of day for it.  He asks her to spell it out, and notes it down on his phone.  A minute later, a door forms.

Carol's well-aware that the guy thinks she's the bee's knees and the cat's pajamas.  Which is irritating, because it's not like she can even enjoy the attention right now.  Also he's a dungeon rescue.  You might as well be a nun while in a dungeon.  Also, it's not like he'd even like the real her right now.  It takes about two counterfactual seconds to find a way to break the door without also summoning 1d4+3 glassquitos.

"Okay.  Through the door now, it looks like a straight corridor?"  She swaggers through the shards of the 'opened' door, gesturing for poor Hugo to follow behind her.

"Yes -- there's a door on the floor just ahead of you; don't take it, just watch your step. Once you're past it --" and she can direct Sinkhole and her rescuee through the shifting, multicolored landscape, back to the room with the portal.

Hugo is really not a fan of that floor-door.  He creeeeps around the edge of it, trying really hard not to risk putting any weight on or near it.

Carol expresses encouragement and patience.

Carol experiences mild annoyance.  It's literally just a door!  Just don't step on it!

But it's not all that long before they get back.  She pats him on the shoulder.  "Good luck with your marathon, Hugo!  Finish it for me, you hear?"  Ugh.  I wish all my rescues were as milquetoast as him.  Most of 'em are fine, but there's a few that are a real pain.

She strolls over to Kendim and Mai's little presumed cuddlepuddle.  "Good tips so far.  Where's the next vic?"

"Glad to hear the racquet works!" says Mai from where she's imitating a koala.

Her koalaee nods without otherwise moving at all. "If you're ready --" She had drawn in the reach of her awareness as Sinkhole and her rescuee came closer; now she stretches out again till she finds another human shape, and judges the best path to reach them. "There's a chain of rooms through the door to the right..."

Carol draws her racquet and salutes Mai with it, as a fencer might before a match.  And throws in a wink for free, why not.  "I'll see you in a few minutes, then."  She heads off to the right, following Kendim's directions.  And swatting a few glassquitos that decided to see what all the fuss was about.

All goes well till she's about halfway there, when a new hollow rotates into Kendim's awareness.

Ah.

"Redirect. Reverse direction and take the door 30 meters on, above you; there's another victim, and this one's bleeding. They're still moving, but I can't tell much about how bad it is."

Shit.  "Copy, reversing three-zero meters, take the door in the ceiling."  She jogs back, smashes the trapdoor with her baton, and then rapidly smashes the glassquitos that come out.  A surge of strength sees her leaping upwards, setting her hands on the edge of the trapdoor, and vaulting above it.  It costs a little backlash to get this high, but it's worth it.  "I'm up.  Where now?"

"Through the next door, and then a left down the corridor, 100 meters."

Sprinting in a dungeon is a great way to die tired.  Jogging in a dungeon is inadvisable unless you have a major emergency.

A bleeding vic with no way to tell exactly how bad it is?  That's worth jogging for, and when a double-digit swarm of glassquitos arrives, well.  It's worth the backlash to thin the swarm down to four.  The final four get dispatched without any backlash use at all.

Okay.  She's a little backlashed, and she's doing okay physically.  Plenty of energy in the tank.  Now let's see what's goi-

Okay.  That's a lot of blood.  "Vic's not looking good.  Can we get medics to meet us halfway, or is that a no-go?"  It's not the first time she's bandaged a nasty-looking slice, but it sure would be nice if she had fucking Delgado around.  Especially since she's going to have to drop eight feet with a sliced-up vic.

"Hey, hon, can you hear me okay?  You doing alright?"  Just fucking use your words, it's not hard.

She's not really responsive.  She stirs a little bit when spoken to, that's about it.

A moment to consult, then: "That's doable. You should be good to retrace your path down the corridor, then you'll have to wait for a door."

"Copy.  I'll be dropping eight feet down, vic nonresponsive.  Defensive lacerations on the left forearm, down to the bone.  It's pretty bad, certainly going to need stitches.  Possible surgery."  She's not a paramedic with a bullshit regeneration power, so she's going to have to use gauze and prayers.  A lot of gauze and prayers.

She tenderly lifts the mostly-unconscious woman, trying to avoid injuring her any more than she already is.  It's worth it, she decides, to burn some backlash budget on getting the woman out faster.  The wounded woman gets hauled into a pretty effortless one-handed fireman's carry.  Her right hand remains armed with a racquet.

Carol was always a strong girl.  But awakening dialed that notch up to 11.  She has more functional muscle in one limb than some normal people have in half of their body.  Hustling an injured woman through a corridor with one hand is fine.

Dropping eight feet is less fine.  Her ligaments aren't about to thank her.  She makes the jump and reinforces her body as she lands.  Ouch.  I'm going to need some time in the...oh.  Right.  She's going to have to make better plans, now that she can't use 'regen it off later' as a crutch.

Fucking Delgado.  It's not a surprise she drove him off, really, if anything it's a miracle she was able to find one(1) partner who could put up with her backlash without getting paid for it.

Three dead glassquitos and a brisk later, she's greeting the medical team.  "Here you go, one vic.  I'm gonna set you down, hon, just hold still for me, okay?"  The patient doesn't respond any more than she did the last three times, but you never know.  Maybe she's just deep in shock and can't tough it out like a functional human being.

The medics move efficiently in to take over, and soon the group is on its way back to the portal.

Sinkhole's role here is to guard against monsters. For all their aggression, it's not that they would be that dangerous to someone in armor; it's not that they put up much resistance to being smashed; no, the issue is that not only the monsters but the entire dungeon is made of glass. For anyone but a combat esper, it's really pretty difficult to kill the darting little creatures without also hitting something else, shattering it, and spawning more monsters in a vicious cycle.

In other words, it's a good thing they have Sinkhole here to help.

That's what she's here for!  Killing things and breaking only the correct things!  ... with a racquet, apparently.  Because dungeons.

This is a really great tool for killing glassquitos.  It's so frustrating that I couldn't have thought of it.

With her and her trusty racquet on the job, they make it back to base camp without further incident. The victim is carried through the portal and out into a world which contains less "crazy colors and sharp edges" and more "hospitals and blood transfusions".

Mai tears her gaze away from the portal. "They've got cages ready just outside now, for any monsters you grab."

"Sounds good.  They're not that bad, if you're dressed for 'em."  She flexes a gloved hand by way of demonstration.  "Mind the stabby thing, though.  That's what got me here."  She points at a noticeable rip along the arm of her jacket.

Nod. "I'm just going to stay out of their reach entirely!"

"Good move, if you can pull it off."  Mai gets a cheeky grin.  "What's your favorite color?"

"Ummmmmmmm I don't really have one but blue?"

She grins even wider at Mai.  "You got it.  One blue glassquito comin' right up."  Then she her expression smooths out, closer to a mask of professionalism.  "Where's the next vic, Kendim?"  Can't just answer a simple question.  Christ.

She reaches out again, and out, till she finds what she's looking for. "Take a left, and then the door in 20 meters."

"See you in a minute, then."  She lets the cheerful expression turn off once she rounds the corner.  Would be nice if I could bring the cage with me and pick it up on the way back.  But nooo, 'changing perspectives' and 'rotating corridors'.  I'd lose it or it'd fall and break the skeeter.  Bullshit all the way down.

By now, at least, she's seen most of what this bullshit dungeon has to offer. She can be guided directed through it till all the victims are out or her backlash is unsustainable, whichever comes first.

Then the next time she comes back, she approaches the sensory cuddlepuddle with her hands behind her back.  "I got'cha something."

"Is it maybe... blue?"

She gasps dramatically.  "How could you possibly have guessed?!"  It's a tealish-blue glassquito, held oh-so-delicately in Sinkhole's hand.  Its glass wings flutter helplessly, trying to escape.  "I don't wanna let it go just yet, but I wanted you two to get a chance to see one before they get put in a lab or a zoo forever."  Her father's advice echoes in her thoughts, adapted slightly: if you want someone to like you, do something nice for their partner.  He'd meant it in the gender-neutral relationship sense, but the advice works as well or better in esper circles.

And Carol definitely wants to get a positive review from these espers.  The esper world is kind of small, and she's got to work extra hard to make sure she's not universally hated by everyone.

"Oh, it's so pretty..." She spends a moment admiring it from her safe distance. "I really hope they stick around after we kill this one, um, this dungeon. Thanks, for showing us."

Kendim nods in agreement. "It's beautiful."

"You're both very welcome.  Least I can do for the two of you.  Any idea where the core is on this one yet, by the way?"  It'll probably be in the middle of a God damned swarm.  It's always in the middle of a God damned swarm.

"I reached it on that last trip, yes. There is a boss... swarm. Some of the glassquitos in it are bigger, but mostly there are just. Many of them."

"It's always a goddamn swarm."  She's so tired of goddamn swarms.  Fucking Delgado could just waltz through it with nary a care but for his pants.  She doesn't have that luxury.  "Any reason we can't just rig up a detonator and run if the portal turns green?"

"I think that would work fine, I can monitor it in case the core moves out of reach of the explosion. I would guess it's probably up to four meters from outside the door to the center of the room where the core is."

"How many of these little fellas are in that swarm, anyway?  Ten?  Twenty?  Too many to count?"

"Not too many to estimate, at least. There were about, mmm..." She closes her eyes to remember. "Fifty or sixty? Not more than a hundred. I wouldn't expect that number to grow."

"Oh!  Just fifty or sixty flying bloodthirsty mosquitos.  I can take 'em.  I was thinking there were a coupla hundred of the little bastards."  Whew.  This I can handle.  "No sign the bigger ones are scarier, armor piercing, venomous, anything like that?"

"Flying and bloodthirsty, just like the usual kind," she agrees. "But no, nothing like that that I could tell -- but I probably wouldn't be able to, I mostly only get shape."

"I'll see if I can bring one back for you.  What's your favorite color?"

"Only if it's easy to do, of course. But red." (No point in trying to specify that it's only deep, clear reds that feel true and comforting, rather than sticky and deceptive. Not the time for that, they're in a dungeon.)

"I'll see what I can do, then.  No promises."  No faith in me whatsoever.  It's just a pokey bug.  Might as well be a flying nettle.

She brings back seven more victims in the next two hours.  And she brings back a total of eleven glassquitos.  By pure happenstance, three of them are red and two of them are blue.

(Fire engine red, burgundy, and borderline light red/dark pink, should Kendim express preferences.  And two deep blue glassquitos, for Mai's part.)

Really, any color of glassquito is a thing of beauty. One by one they get safely locked in their cages and moved through the portal, in hopes that they'll stick around past their dungeon's destruction.

And then the very last victim has successfully been gotten out. "Good work, everyone!" It's always worth at least a moment of recognition, in her opinion, when a dungeon is cleared of victims.

Kendim appreciates this about her partner.

She looks toward Sinkhole. "Would it work better for you to go after the core now, or to stop for guiding?"

I hate feeling embarrassed.  And I hate how I have to route every fucking emotion through being pissed.  "I don't actually have a local partner, right now."  And they're not compatible enough to cuddle my backlash away.  Bullshit how they can just snuggle the whole dungeon.  She's probably zeroed right now.  Ugh.  I also hate feeling jealous.

That's a little alarming, really. "Is your agent looking for someone, or -- well, we could just stop for the day, anyway," to let it go chronic, "or there's a chance my agent could find a professional who's compatible with you on short notice, if you want me to ask."

Sinkhole doesn't seem like she's worried about this, but Kendim has learned to avoid assuming that people who seem like they have everything handled -- esper or not -- in fact do.

No, we've come this far and I'm not about to pussy out of this shitty little pissant dungeon and let it kidnap more people overnight.  "I'm good if you two are, this one's pretty easy.  Just really easy to get lost in."  And there's no shortage of things I can vent my backlash on.  As long as I don't use my power to destroy something that annoys me because it annoys me, I should be fine.  "I do have a pro back home, I just take a lot of far-ranging missions."  Maybe a partner who doesn't speak English wouldn't be so bad?

She's been hiding her problems for a long, long time.  The only outward sign of her irritation is a little tightness around the eyes, a clench of her fist behind her hip.

Sinkhole has in fact been showing remarkably few signs of the aggression that's listed as her backlash, but that in itself... isn't entirely unconcerning, though Kendim doesn't let this show on her face.

"All right. The core, then. Even if the boss swarm turns out to be surprisingly dangerous in some way, you're sure you would at least be able to retreat?" It's worth checking, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to poke harder than that; if Sinkhole says yes, she'll take her word for it.

"I've always been able to so far."  Pisses me off that she's probably right, though.  I'll be like those moose they found dead, antler-locked together, unable to let go.  Except when I die, nobody'll ever find my body.  "I'll be fine, Kendim."  The second sentence is a little firmer than she probably should have gone with, but nobody's fucking perfect, now are they?

Nod. She will, then, give directions all the way through the dungeon to almost the farthest edge. There's a bit of a wait, but then the core room connects to the corridor Sinkhole is in, and its door blooms on the dungeon wall beside her.

It's not hard to traverse the dungeon, when you're used to it.  She winds up having to take a big jump, but this time she won't be dropping down with ten stone of injured dungeon victim, so it'll be fine.  Mostly.

"About to engage the core.  I'll try not to pop it, but no promises."  Three, two, one.

Smash.

Okay.  That's a lot of glassquitos.

She backs off, her trusty racquet at the ready.  THAT IS REALLY AN ALARMING NUMBER OF GLASSQUITOS -

And then she's a whirl.  She doesn't actively use her power and the glassquitos can't touch her.  Until, that is, she encounters a larger one.

When it shatters, it splits into 5 smaller glassquitos and she has to cover herself and one of them is going for her eyes -

The fastest way to destroy the glassquito aiming for her iris is to headbutt it.  If she does that, this other large glassquito will stab through her faceplate and cause an abrupt spike of backlash.  It's expensive - she has durability, but it's the priciest use of her power.

(It's weird feeling backlash spikes in a precognitive flash.  She's gotten used to it, but it's still bizarre to feel her own backlash level and also her counterfactual backlash level for that less-than-an-instant of vision)

Her right hand punches up and smacks the first glassquito, her left hand smacks the bossglassquito into the wall, where it reforms - she wants to retreat but she doesn't want to give up her chokepoint and also she's not sure that she'll be able to get into the core room again, the way these doors keep reforming.

Well.  Let's try this - her right hand acts as the first line of defence, smashing the smaller glassquitos.  The larger ones she lets past her racquet and crushes them with her precognition and her power and her hand. It turns out that they cannot, actually, reform if you crush them thoroughly enough.

It takes her a few minutes of frantic swatting, slapping, squeezing and crushing.  But in the end, she has two prizes in hand: a gorgeous rainbow stained-glass crystal the size of her head and a larger blood-red glassquito.

She also is feeling rather vexed.  The swarm was more than she had really hoped for, and she's annoyed at herself for letting herself experience hope.  About anything, really.

"Got the core."  Fucking finally.

Kendim has been monitoring the fight. With her sensory power covering Sinkhole's location, she feels each destroyed glassquito as though a part of herself is shattering to pieces; it's disorienting, but not precisely painful (which she's had plenty of opportunities to be glad of, in this line of work). After so long to get used to it, the sensation is only interesting, and a little strange.

"That was impressive," she says sincerely. She'd been alert in case she had to intervene, but it wasn't needed. The things combat espers can do... "I don't see any problems on the way back. Go back through the door behind you..." and in due course, the route to the portal can be revealed.

Carol is not quite to the point where she's snarling, but it's closer than she would really prefer.  She's definitely not as suave as usual.  Her reply is a clipped, "Thank you.  Copy."  Like to see you give it a shot, can you sense your way out of a boss fucking fight?  She begins mentally reviewing the parting words.  It's easier, mentally, when she has a phone and a list she can pick from.  With this much backlash, saying nice things is like driving without power assist: possible, but you're fighting the whole time.

Seems best to keep her directions short and to the point from now on.

Nothing explodes on the way back. At base camp, someone is eager to -- carefully -- take charge of the core, and the bossquito can be caged up like all the others. Kendim gives her a nod. Mai has begun dekoalaing, stretching out her limbs.

Carol was masking pretty well before.  She's still masking, but it's pretty obvious that there are cracks you could drive a Ute through.  She gives an incredibly tense smile to the two of them.  "Thank you both.  The sensoring was on point, and this was a very tricky dungeon, navigationally speaking.  I couldn't have done it without the two of you.  I'd be happy to work with you in the future."  Her voice is even.  Not robotic, but it sounds like she's concentrating and manually controlling her tone of voice.

She hates how she sounds.  She's good at people, damn it.  Normally.  When she's backlashed, she doesn't sound like a human being.  She sounds like a lousy facsimile.  Worse than that, really, Frosty the Snowman was likeable.  Even the Tin Woodsman would be a step up from Carol McCleery today.

"I'm glad to hear it. We would be happy to work with you as well, if the chance comes up." Simple and truthful; Sinkhole did a very competent job with this dungeon.

Mai leaves the talking to her partner, for this, but gives Sinkhole a smile.

I'm so annoyed that I can't even be glad they liked working with me.  "I'll look forward to it, then.  See you around."  She turns and strides out of the portal, her strides rapidly removing her from the situation before she snaps and says something she means.

And that's it for this dungeon. Mai calls a car, and helps her partner over to it when it arrives.

Leyla has gotten pretty good at manipulating her limbs at this level of backlash, and she can easily make it there with her partner's help. (It's nice that Mai is taller than her.)

Once she's gotten them both settled in their seats, she gives Leyla a questioning look. "So..."

"She was at least a little bit interested in you, if you had been compatible," she confirms.

"Huh!"

"…I guess she's not that young. But, the meh."

"Mm-hmm."

Guiding smooches time. Now that she doesn't have to be the one keeping her balance, she spins up just enough of a breeze to feel and lets herself lean dizzily into Leyla, mouth finding mouth. They ought to be able to get her backlash nearly cleared before the car reaches their next dungeon.

And back to another temporary professional guide.  The issue with Carol's backlash is that you need a certain attitude to put up with Carol's self-admitted bullshit.  So instead of gating guiding based on ordinary compatibility, she's gated on interpersonal compatibility.  And she's good at masking.  She's done it for years.  But you can't go months without slipping up once, and if they snap back...

Which why her current guide has noise-canceling headphones and a VR headset and their compatibility is okay but it's not great and she's furious about how disappointed she is, you'd think you could find a good partner if went to a whole-ass nother continent about it!

She'd rather get some fluid exchange going, if that were on offer.  But her current guide(she's too angry to try to remember their name) is not interested in that.  They're not really into girls.

But she zeros out, eventually.  Time to have a shower, go to sleep, and do it all over again tomorrow.