They can do that! And Conrad can calibrate Tim because his power means he can resist damage and can tell when his body otherwise would be, because he's able to tell if his durability is used up.

“Being able to tell when someone’s hurt is a lot better than being able to fix it afterward.”

"Yes, indeed. Your power lets you sense damage, right?"

“Yeah, a little bit?  It’s really obvious if someone broke a bone or something.”

Ah, he thought it was more fine than that. Oh well.

The next topic he covers is identifying safe places to step on. Floor traps are rather common in dungeons, even if it's as simple as 'a stone that you trip over'. Conrad is of the opinion that people overly focus on obstacle courses and going through them really fast, when the more dangerous part is failing to detect an area that isn't safe to step on. He feels that obstacle courses promote the bad habit of mind of thinking that everything in a dungeon is as it seems, when they are often more tricksy than that.

Dungeons do typically stick to naturalism in their design, though, so unsafe places to step in real life will usually map to unsafe places to step in dungeons. Don't step in thick mud, cracked floors, suspicious raised or lowered platforms, et cetera. If you're unsure, avoid it, tap at it with your foot, or call for a stop to re-evaluate. Many people only look to their front — also make sure you are looking down!

Oh no but what if he has to look at Not Someone’s Face Or At Most Shoulder okay this is not actually a social situation.  Think of it as a tournament, not a conversation. Really why would you even think of this as social, that doesn’t make sense.

Aaaand that framing does the trick.  “So treat it like you’re hiking someplace unfamiliar, where terrain might be out to get you.  Like a snow-covered “field” that might actually have an iced over swamp underneath.”

Carol, meanwhile, stands behind Tim.  She cocks an eyebrow at the instructor and dungeon-signs him.  Check ceiling question?

"That's right! I didn't know you liked hiking too."

Then, to Carol, "Tomorrow." He smiles.

????

Now it is Carol’s turn to smirk at Tim.

Smirk!!

Anyway, despite what he said earlier, he's still going to ask Aumento to go through an obstacle course, now. Except the course has a variety of surfaces that are meant to look like slippery ice or sticky mud or the like. He wants Tim to go through it as fast as possible, but, if he ever rests his weight on any of the no-no surfaces, that will be considered a failure and he'll ask him to restart.

Okay, that’s easy! Wait.  No powers.

… this may be slightly harder than anticipated.

He visibly takes a minute to pick out a route.  It goes mostly as planned but he does lose a few seconds by intentionally sprawling over so as to not land in “mud”.  Does that count as a fail?

"You followed the parameters of the mission, so it's not a fail. But doing that isn't something that will be very good in a dungeon."

If Tim wants to repeat this course, he can do that! Otherwise, they can move on. It's actually near lunch time, so Conrad proposes taking a break for now. Especially since some stuff for later will require preparation.

One more try!!!  Then, lunch.  What’s cookin’?  Anything good?

It's army food. Conrad doesn't have much to say about it.

There's mac and cheese, rotisserie chicken, corn on the cob, green beans, toast, battered catfish, baked potatoes. It's decent.

Tim takes some of the fish and regrets it.  He soldiers on, but is visibly happier about the green beans and potatoes.

Carol takes an R strategy of getting a small serving of everything.  She wordlessly swaps trays with Tim long enough to save him from mediocre fish - he can have her chicken instead.

Conrad takes green beans, potatoes, and chicken. Yeah, the fish is. Not good here. He really should have told them about it beforehand but he forgot. He's just going to refrain from saying anything about it.

Once they get back to the training center, Conrad kindly asks Aumento to blindfold himself. For testing reasons.

Sinkhole is mature and professional enough to not giggle.

Tim is also mature enough to not giggle and if he puts the blindfold on fast enough nobody can see him blushing. Damn this pale skin, Maman never has this problem.  Or maybe she just never gets embarrassed.  Definitely one of those.

Conrad will then take several minutes to rearrange the layout of the training dungeon (the walls are slidable or rollable for this purpose) then mark each one with the appropriate diagram.

Then, he will carry Aumento to a certain location inside it, unless Sinkhole would prefer to do so.

“My partner, I’ll take responsibility for him.”  She swiftly moves through the ‘pick up a panicky civvy’ hold and follows Ferrer.

Whispered: “Sinkhole!”

“Sorry, Aumento.  I didn’t realize I pinched your wrist there.” Oh, that was not a wrist.