"Well, small compensations I suppose...Maybe the plants will provide some sort of useful material. Both the mobile ones and the stationary ones. The latter might even be amenable to cultivation. Possibly. I understand that is often difficult."

"There's been some work on dungeon plants!" He can natter on that a bit, he hasn't gotten personally involved with it much because it doesn't usually require an esper to transplant a weird flytrap or shiny berrybush but he does find it interesting.

She enjoys hearing people in general and Traceless in specific talk about things they're interested in and can produce reasonably thoughtful commentary.

That is all he asks.

Eventually they can get out of the tent and go someplace with showers.

Showers! Also tossing the sweaty tank top and shorts in a plastic bag. One advantage of wearing layers is she can get rid of some of the sweaty clothes right away.

They find the Hanging Gardens core and Haru goes and grabs a bunch of plant monsters - there's a botanical garden that's interested - but they die when the dungeon does. Alas.

Oh well. Maybe that botanical garden will still be interested if they run into more plant monsters later.

Probably will be.

Then they want to teleport the both of them to a psychic dungeon in New York City. New York City has lots of its own espers, but this one is dragging on into its second week of merrily chowing down on New Yorkers, and it's also more vertically oriented than most dungeons - it's a mineshaft, full of bats with pickaxe crests on their heads, and they keep destroying the ladders that are dropped down from the portal at the top. Also, if Vantage can scrub psychic residue off victims, then Compos Mentis, the local who's been taking point on this one, could really use a day off.

Well she will certainly try, and if not provide guiding for Traceless since it sounds like he'll be doing a lot of flying here.

"Yeah. Uh, should Paula get us one hotel room or two?"

"Hmmm...how about one." She knows what people will assume but it just makes more sense that way. 

He nods and texts accordingly. "It'll be really good if you can do psychic decontamination, they've been running Compos Mentis ragged and it sounds like they had Teller for a few days but she had to leave."

"What's this one doing?"

"Their sense of time is fucked up, they think they've been in there for hundreds of years and are as nuts as you'd expect if that were the case. If any of the bats have a view of the core we really want to kill this one."

"Oh wow, that's pretty awful...."

"Yep. Compos Mentis can get that whole deal into, like, 'fading dream' status, hopefully you can do something like that." Pack pack pack.

"And I'll try to find the core. Or at least make it easier for somebody else to find it. This one needs killing. Well they all need killing but..."

"But this one would be a lot worse than most to have popping up again in a couple years in Paris, yes."

"Yeah." She checks her bag one last time.

Haru goes and bids Cricket goodbye, and then he's ready for the teleport whenever she is.

She's ready.

Vwoip.

Here's the secure site around the dungeon entrance, which has pasted itself brazenly on the side of an office building. Haru introduces the both of them and their powers and in Vantage's case speculated powers, and they both get a quick confirmation that nothing important has been discovered since the briefing they're working from. Compos Mentis, who is clinging to his partner desperately and looks less compos mentis than the average head injury patient with comorbid psychosis and four days of sleep deprivation, can shield Vantage so she can safely go in, but Traceless doesn't need it. Up the ladder with them.

Up the ladder they go.Hopefully that guy can get some rest.

Her shield is expected to last her a few hours - she's supposed to bail if she notices her watch seeming to slow down at all or after it's been four hours, whichever comes first.

The mineshaft is quiet, swallowing up sound strangely despite what looks like it should be an echoey structure. There's just enough room on the lip of the shaft for the team holding the portal to park and anchor belaying equipment and not much more beyond that. They've put a lattice of ropes over the open pit to slow down incoming bats. The apertures sufficient to foul their wingspans still leave room for a rescuer and a victim to get through easily.

They warn them not to trust the current rope ladder hanging down - it's been there for a while and may have been assailed by bats, though there are at least fewer bats around now than there were when the dungeon first opened. Traceless assures them all that he can fly if necessary, and checks his comms with Vantage are operational, and starts down.

She will check in with Traceless regularly and also check her watch regularly and keep the people with guns between her and any possible bats making their way up.