Which is good, because Lina is basically useless at the fighting monsters and cracking cores of dungeoneering. But she is good at locating people, at least so long as they've got enough brain function to be on some level aware of anything.

So she's here with Lucas, who is good at things like "first aid" and "getting people to a hospital really fast", and they are picking their way through the rubble.

Well, there's a person trapped in a half-collapsed tunnel.  This is a problem that can either be solved via a work crew and optionally some heavy equipment(which can't be refueled until the streets get taken back) or one(1) esper and their guide.

The mind in this tunnel is trying not to pay attention to her stomach(and failing) and trying to not pay attention to their neck pain(and failing) and also trying not to pay attention to the fact that their phone battery is down to 6% and soon they won't have any e-books at all.

Their attention keeps shifting back and forth from the e-book to the rest of their situation.

"Okay, there's someone just a bit further that way. They don't seem to be injured or anything so it should just be a matter of getting them out."

How's the rubble looking? Can he clear a path to them by teleporting these rock chunks here into a neat stack over there, or is he going to need to get more creative?

The main problem is one central chunk.  If you could manage to shift that, you'd probably be able to move most of the rest by hand.  The quarters are so tight that it'd be hard to do it and it'd be pretty tricky to break it up without power tools or a pickaxe and room to swing it.

Thankfully, you don't have any of those constraints.

Zworp. That middle chunk is now laid flat on the floor over there, and any pieces that threaten to fall when that one is removed can form a little pyramid on top of it.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK

"Hello in there! We're gonna get you out in just a minute, hold tight!"

They scrabble for where they dropped their phone in fright.  "Sorry, sorry, you just - it's fine!"

"Glad you're doing alright!"

He could move the rest by hand, but honestly a few rocks isn't a huge expense with Lina right here. Zworp zworp more debris goes in the tidy pile over there.

Then it's not long before they're clambering out.  "Thanks so much, I had the emergency lights, and I had my phone, but I was getting a little claustrophobic."

"An extremely valid response to getting trapped in a tunnel! I'm glad we were able to get to you before you were in there too too long." She offers a hand to help them over the uneven terrain, then gestures to one of their DRT entourage.

"Todd here can lead you out, and when you get there there's a whole relief station set up with first aid and hot beverages and snacks. You should be able to charge your phone there, too."

"I'd kill for a water.  Even one of those gross esperades.  Again, thank you both so much..."

Todd checks her over for symptoms as they walk, making sure she's oriented and not in pain and not dangerously dehydrated and ... 

"Happy to help!" Handoff concluded, Lina waves goodbye, then begins venturing further down the service tunnel, senses extended for anyone who might be paying attention to anything. As they walk, she and Lucas hold hands, guiding off his burst of debris-clearing with her ongoing sensor drain.

Huh.  That's an odd mind.  Two odd minds, actually, and a third that isn't paying attention to much.

The two odd minds are focused intently on retrieving their [f̵͍̄ô̷͖ọ̸̒d̴̛͉].

Well that doesn't seem normal. In fact the focus on [f̴̙̑ó̸̟̆o̵̫̿̄d] kinda reminds her of dungeon monsters she's encountered before?

She waves over the DRT squad and says quietly, "There's something weird up ahead, I think it might be some kind of breached dungeon monster? More than one of them..."

"Like more of those Menagerie critters, you think? Are there any people nearby them?" 

"Feels a little different from those... maybe? But they were each different from each other, so hard to say really. There's two that have got that same weird-feeling fixation on something I can't really make sense of that a lot of monsters do, though. And there's another with them that could be a person, or maybe another monster, but it's like really zoned out, maybe barely conscious."

"If it's more Menagerie monsters and a person with them, we can't risk startling them like we did with the last one. We'll have to find a way to get them separated first. Keep us updated if any of them move or start doing something different."

"Roger that."

The DRT goons get serious.  Most of their job is calming civilians and doing firefighter-adjacent tasks.

But they're also soldiers.  Weapons come free, safeties are checked.  "Can you guide us to them, ma'am?  And keep their attention off us, if we find them?"

"I can take us to them, and I should be able to keep their attention off of us. It'll be easier because they haven't noticed us yet." Not perfect, because monster perception is weird and harder to interpret, but they should be much less detectable at least.

As they get closer, she lays out her game plan:

"The maybe-a-person mind in there seems pretty out of it. Hard to say if sudden noise or movement would jolt them awake, or get no response, and it's risky to test. So what I want to do is create some kind of mild, ongoing stimulus, one that shouldn't be enough to startle anyone, but distinct enough that I can use it as a distraction." She starts some music playing from a small portable speaker, esper-quiet, then reaches out to the minds over there.

[Music is the most interesting thing. Music is fascinating and if you heard any you'd be so engrossed you wouldn't even notice whatever else might be happening around you. Especially not any people. People are so completely boring and hold no information worth having.] she wills at them, then, carefully monitoring them for any changes in attention, slowly notches the sound up.

They're - confused?  There was [f̴̙̑ó̸̟̆o̵̫̿̄d], but it's not - [relevant/interesting/a priority] anymore.  But there's music.  Maybe that's where the [f̴̙̑ó̸̟̆o̵̫̿̄d] was.

It's not long before a pair of DRT operatives come around the corner.  They must be from another outfit - their equipment is subtly different.  And one of them is wearing a DRT-standard balaclava, while the other is wearing a respirator.

One of them has the stripes of a DRT captain, while the other is marked as a lieutenant.  Neither of them register the presence of the espers or their team.

...There weren't supposed to be other teams working this sector, were there? Weird.

"Hey," he calls out to the operatives, quietly because being less interesting to the monsters nearby is not quite the same thing as imperceptible to them. "There's some monsters nearby, probably Menagerie, and a possible civilian with them. Watch out."