"I want things to be better for everyone."

"I was going to but now I'm here." She tucks the phone away and curls up again.

She nods. "When we figure out how to get out of here, we'll also figure out a way to make everything better, everywhere. At least eventually."

"Mh," she acknowledges.

She glances at Rescue again, then goes back to reading.

She takes her phone back out again after a few minutes, but not to talk, apparently.

After another hour, she says "I'm going for a walk. I'll be back for dinner and you can talk if you need me."

"Alright."

She comes back after a little less than an hour, from a different direction, looking calmer, and waits for September to notice her before she has her phone speak. "I don't think we can get back, and it hurts to think about it if I don't think we can. I want to if we can find a way but I don't want to talk about it before that."

She nods, slowly. "Alright."

Tap tap: "I don't think you did anything wrong and I'm not upset at you. I'm hurting because they hurt me, that's all."

"Do you want to do something else today?"

"Hm... I wouldn't mind watching more movies, or reading more - I think I'm gonna wanna explore more tomorrow, though, and maybe find people I can go talk to?"

"Sure." "I'm not ever going to want to get close to grownups but I don't mind waiting while you do."

"Yeah. And then I can gather information and stuff."

"Okay."

"Wanna go pick out a movie?"

"Sure."

She picks something fluffy and light-hearted featuring animated cats.

September is just as enraptured as she was by the action movie.

Denice enjoys it too, and in the morning they can go look for another group to talk to.

The people in the slightly lower levels still know the people September was talking to last time - there's trade routes, as best as anyone can manage, and the groups try to keep in some level of contact, even if most groups don't get really big. There's a 'city' about forty miles that-a-way someone describes to them, on the same level - mostly a really big loose association of people staying near each other to trade a lot, which probably doesn't even top 'small village' sizes, but it's huge as far as local groups go. This group has a shelf witch near them who does technology - which isn't as tricky to read out as medicine, but still can be pretty tricky - so they've got a lot of things like motorized scooters.

They trade with a group from deeper down, too, sometimes - some of the weird stuff in the depths stays weird even if you bring it up, and that can be really useful. 'Weird' is mostly 'really magical,' as far as trade goods go - they have glowing stones that never stop glowing, and someone blind got a ring that lets them magically know what's right around them even if it's not exactly sight. Magical stuff's expensive, though - that stuff's heirloom goods, pretty much, and they had to trade a lot for it. Mostly good quality provisions books.

They help September fill out a bit of a vague guess map, at least as things were last time they heard from a trader. The map goes out past Rescue's hearing range.

That's all pretty interesting.

"I want to go listen to the city," Denice says when September gets back. "And maybe go into the depths once we know more. What do you think?"

She hums. "Yeah, I think that's best, the city'll have a lot of people..."

"Yeah." "I don't want to go in but we can get close and I can listen." "You can go in if you want."

"I'll want to, yeah. I like people."

They can head in that direction, then. Rescue pokes at her phone a bit to see if she can get podcasts or something rather than more wikipedia.

There's a massive archive of those, once Rescue digs a bit. Fortunately, the library has a podcast app that has highly convenient search features!