"What for?"

“Dungeon research!”

"...was there something special in the video?"

“Probably not. But the dungeon’s dead, so if something about it turns out to be significant later, the video might be useful. And it’s not like I had anything better to do.”

"I guess. If I'd had my phone on me I would've probably just played I Love Hue."

“Oh, I was tied up by dungeon spiderweb, with the hand with the phone in it like so,” she demonstrates, “I managed to get to the camera one-handed and with a bad angle on the screen but no way could I manage any of my games.”

Traceless pops back into the tent. "I think the monsters are all deep enough underwater that they don't care about anything going on at the surface. Till we get a more aquatic esper in here or a scuba team it's very quiet in there, which sucks for the victims but for your purposes should be fine, you wanna come see if you can find a monster? - also maybe read a victim long enough to inform the urgency level."

“Sounds good!” She bounces to her feet to follow him out and into the dungeon.

There's a ladder; he precedes her up it. Inside there's the dim starry sky, the murky still water, and the... neon orange... pontoon situation they can stand on right at the entrance.

She in fact does not work across dungeon barriers.

As soon as she crosses onto the pontoon, the targets for her power flicker into existence.

She reaches for one that seems to be moving.

This is what it is like to be a water-breathing crocodile with six legs.

Wow.

And is this what it’s like to take control of a water-breathing crocodile with six legs?

Yup!

It's... bigger than a cockroach. A lot.

Wow yeah. She lets go immediately.

“So the good news is I can control dungeon monsters. The bad news is the dungeon monsters are big.”

"Yeah, I really felt that. Maybe experiment with it more after you do an urgency check on the victims? They can scramble a scuba team faster, they just have to shell out bonuses for it."

“Yeah. I think I can divert monsters to rescue if I’m willing to eat the backlash, too.” She grabs the senses of a stationary target.

Maybe a quarter of the way to conscious, drowning, not getting worse but dimly freaked out about it.

“—Oh, that’s much better than I was expecting. Not actively dying and not totally conscious.” She touches some more hostages to check if the first one is typical.

Yeah, they're all like that.

“Okay yeah this could be so much worse.”

She dips into the monster’s sensorium again. She’s looking for monster-specific senses, this time: is it getting commands from the dungeon? Can it sense the suffering of the dungeon’s victims?

Can it, perhaps, orient relative to the dungeon’s core?

Nah the monster has no fucking clue where the core is and the dungeon is not talking to it right now. It's just swimming around among the floating victims and other crocs.

Drat.

Anything interesting? Can it smell blood like a shark, or sense bioelectricity, or see any nifty colors?

It can see pretty well in the dark! There's not a lot to see, but it can see it.

Oh well.

“I can point people out to the rescue teams. And I can grab a monster if anyone needs something with one, but until then—or until there’s a good place to restrain one until the dungeon dies—it’s too pricey to do just because.”

"I can almost certainly place a monster with a zoo if it survives the dungeon's death but it's bad practice to catch one without the core in hand. You get a sense of the victims' positions relative to you?"