Does he think Tim can run dungeons with a monster?  It's hard to say.  Tim's new at this, which in some ways means that running a dungeon with a monster is less of a disadvantage than you might think.  Everything about running dungeons is new, to Tim, so one more new thing might even not register.  On the other hand, he's a newbie esper and while he's going to be a fantastic dungeoneer in time, he's still learning.  "I think it's possible."  Racehorse on my phone, sort by dungeon monster dungeoneers - aha.  "This is Cricket, correct?"  Hmm....been running dungeons for several years...acerbic personality...Tim wants to be a professional so bad.  This might be workable.

"That's great. I can ask Traceless to mediate an introduction between them over the phone, see if it'll work well enough to last for the duration of a run?"

"Excellent idea, yes.  I'd hate to do an introduction at the portal, only to find that they weren't, ah, interpersonally compatible."

"It's, uh, still possible for Cricket to turn out to object to how he smells, so it might actually make more sense to have them meet at Thursday's 4055 in New York, which Cricket is definitely going to run and the question is whether he needs to wait for Kevin Shields to be available or not."

Bill stares at his phone for a second, then rubs the bridge of his nose.  "How he smells," Bill states, flatly.  How on earth do you even operationalize that?  "Okay.  Is there a known list of triggers?"

"There's not so much a known list of triggers as that he finds something, however petty, to object to about everyone except specifically Traceless, but some people it's a minor enough problem that he can still work with them," says Paula apologetically. "And, uh, some people find it cute when a cat complains about their haircut a lot, and can likewise work with him. Unfortunately Traceless is not much good for protecting Cricket in four dimensions."

"Which is where Aumento comes into play.  I see.  I suspect that Aumento will have some navigational ability in 4d, given the sensory component of his power."  He clicks a stylus a few times, thinking it over.  "Aumento does have, ah - experience with volatile psychological backlashes.  I imagine that if Cricket doesn't object overmuch to him, it should work out well enough for one run."

"Great. Does Thursday's 4055 look like it'll work?"

"Let me check..." He pulls up an interactive calendar and pokes through it.  "Yes, I think we can swing it.  I'll confirm with Aumento first, but I don't imagine he'll object.  Novelty factor, if nothing else."

"It is that! - Is Aumento's power known to work on monsters or at least animals?"

"It's known to work on both, he will very gingerly use it to assess damage on monsters."

"Great. What time works best for him? Cricket's flexible on that."

"Mornings would be preferable.  Let's put it down tentatively at 9 o'clock local time, I'll confirm with Aumento that the unusual circumstances are acceptable and confirm the time as well."

"Excellent. I'll put you as a CC if they manage to clear-and-kill before then."

"I appreciate the consideration.  I'll follow up with Aumento and reach out to you by end of day."

And at 9am Cricket is in New York taking a pre-meeting nap on a pallet of water bottles that is waiting for the rescues. (The other side of the pallet is still accessible, it's fine.)

Awwwwww kittycat. She is looking respectfully but not petting him.

You know, he's a little sad he probably won't be getting an animal.  But if he could, a gorgeous winged dungeon kitty would be on the list.  NORMALLY his checklist for Meeting a New Person would involve a glance at their photo and a reminder on how to pronounce their name before walking in.  However, 'Cricket' is both eminently recognizable and extremely easy to pronounce.  He murmurs in an undertone to Summer, "D'you think it's rude to wake him up?"  It's not quite esper-quiet, there's enough background noise that he can't murmur as quietly as possible.

"It's illegal," says Summer solemnly.

The phone alarm in Cricket's little clutch bag goes off with a chirping birds noise. He paws open the bag and baps the phone. Gives a giant toothy yawn. Looks at Summer, since she's the more obvious esper of the two.

"Hi! I'm Summer, Aumento's partner for when he takes breaks, that's Aumento."

"Why are you named after a season?"

"It's my mom's fault! My sisters are named Winter and Autumn!"

"That's stupid."

"...your name is Cricket."

"I'm a cat. It is an appropriate cat name." He licks his paw and looks at Aumento.

"Good morning, sir."  Start out slow.  He's going to find something to dislike about you, you just have to make sure it's something minor.  "Your fur is gorgeous."  Okay that wasn't slow.  Oops.

"I know." Pawlick. "It is fluffier in four dimensions."

"I'm looking forward to seeing it.  I uh, I messaged you online, once, you said it was even better if we had 4d eyes to see it.  I don't know if you remember it?"  Argh.  Uptalk.

"I have many admirers and it does not sound like you were very special in how you went about it." Biiiig wingstretch.

What do you even say to that.  He looks at Summer for a second, then back to Cricket.  "Well, maybe I'll do some research and figure out an angle nobody's used yet."

"In your copious spare time?" says Cricket. "Now, how much of your power do I need versus a flying multitool, will it make flapping difficult to calibrate such that I should first try catching a pigeon out here, and will it protect my fur?"

What do you know about my spare time you little - focus.  No strong opinions.  "Really not much.  I can give you a multitool's worth right now, if you want - the power gets more expensive the further away from me you are.  If there isn't a...pigeon less than, uh, call it two hundred feet from me that might get expensive."  Normally that'd be way too much but Summer's here and it's not a lot of power use.

"It's New York City. There are plenty. But that is pretty constraining for a divebomb. Maybe that balcony railing." He points a paw. "Yes?"

Squint.  "I haven't had call to pounce many pigeons lately, you're the expert.  Go for it, I'll keep my power on you.  Uh, Summer, d'you mind..?"  He lifts his shirt slightly, for better access.  Then has a minor anxiety attack about doing so. Surely this won't offend him, he's - well, what's done is done.  Too late.

Cricket barely spares a glance for Summer looping an arm around Aumento's waist. He does a little test-wiggle, then flies for the chosen railing, and presuming flight handling is as expected he becomes Death From Above for a hapless pigeon that was investigating a fallen falafel.

He melts into Summer a little, and whistles at the brief feline fracas.  "Whoof.  Poor pigeon never saw that coming."  It's a little much at those distances, but it's basically fine, and in the actual dungeon they'll be considerably closer.  And he has an emotional support Summer.  Oh, right.  I hope she got briefed on how Cricket can be.  "I don't think your name's stupid, by the way."

"It is a popular normal human name but I do sometimes tease Mom about what she would have done if Winter had been twins."

"Winter and...hm.  Invierno, I guess?  No, that's a bad match."  He shrugs a bit, watching Cricket soar through his domain.  "Hope he doesn't have to deal with delivery drones."  He really is gorgeous.

"She would have named a boy Vernon but a fourth girl she might have picked a month-name. Or 'Anna'."

Cricket does a barrel roll and lands neatly near Aumento's feet. "Not so hard to get used to. And I can bite through the monsters like this?"

"Yessir.  Depends on the monster, of course.  Strength, durability, and a little bit of regeneration.  Probably good to keep it on you, in case you've gotten hurt.  Works best on recent stuff, but it helps a bit on older injuries."  He'll adjust the power usage to keep himself backlash-neutral.  Cricket is, after all, a literally irreplaceable dungeon asset with a literally inhuman level of skill at navigating 4D dungeons.

"The monster is Swiss army knives with beetle wings," Cricket says. "They will fit in my mouth if I don't have to worry about getting cut." His phone rings. "That will be Traceless to introduce us, his morning dungeon must have run long." He has a doodad he can hook a claw through to fish the phone from the bag.

But we're already introduced...?  "Uh, might need a little more than that to kill them."  He'd explain more, but apparently he's going to be talking to Traceless.  Again.  Hopefully he'll make a better impression this time.  But then, you only get one shot at a first impression. 

OHSHITPHONE - he cuts the power to Cricket before claws can make contact with anything valuable.

Phonebap. "Hello! How were the moles?"

"They liked collapsing their tunnels, I'm okay but sorry I’m late, is Aumento there already?"

"Yes. I can kill a pigeon with superstrength."

"I hope the pigeons don’t have superstrength. Hi Aumento, can you hear me?" Cricket has his phone at a normal non-esper volume.

"Yessir, I can hear you just fine.  Can you hear me?"  His face is kept as blank as possible, but his body language is visibly tense.  He's reeeeaaaaalllllyyyyy not looking forward to this conversation!

"Loud and clear. You might not actually need me but sometimes it helps to have someone who's already familiar with Cricket in the mix when he's meeting new people, he's the best in the world at seeing and moving around in 4D but needs a bodyguard if there's any monsters more functional than decorative."

"Do you want one of the pocketknives?"

"Oh, they're no way going to live but I guess a dead one we could sell to a museum, so yeah, I'll have Tess get a box for one sent over just in case."

Purr.

"He'll be fine, knives aren't a problem for my power.  Uh, Cricket, I cut the power on you when you were about to touch your phone - humans often have issues adjusting to my power being on them.  It doesn't usually feel like anything's different until you touch something and break it.  You're the first monster I've used my power on, I don't know if you have - instincts about it?"  Traceless is going to judge me for never using my power on a rescued monster before that's stupid, Tim, how many rescued monsters are there?

"Wait, what, Paula said you'd tried monsters."

"I used to be much bigger. It is a little like being much bigger without taking up more space."

"Sorry, I misspoke - I mean, the first, uh, monster who's a person.  My power is fine-grained, I can use a little sliver of it on live monsters to see how injured they are, or for tracking if they're stealthy.  And once for an injured monster at the Monster Zoo.  But I don't, you know, go out of my way to give dungeon monsters superpowers.  Cricket will be the first dungeon monster who can tell me how it feels to get augmented."  Frriiiiiccckkkkkk.

"Oh, are you who John called in for the walking mushroom? Anyway, apparently it feels like being bigger but without taking up more space."

Oh good, I did something right when Traceless was around to see it, so I don't look like a complete buffoon.  "Yeah, that was me.  Poor thing.  Anyway, you can handle the power without needing any more practice, Cricket?"

"I do wonder how it will be pulling you around in the dungeon. I usually do that by putting a harness on Kevin or whoever."

"Tess sent one ahead but, yeah, the concept has not been tested against superstrength."

"I can just unweave one of my spare vests and we can tie it off - wait, shouldn't we be more worried about the flying knives cutting the leash?"

"Only if they're smart."

"Well, I'll bring a few leads we can use and if one of them breaks, we can use another.  If we lose two leads, we can pull back to the portal and figure something else out."  Third rule of superstrength: always bring spares.

Cricket nods. "If they are very smart knives we will need one made of Kevlar or something."

"I'll give Tess the heads up about that and about a box for a capture if you have a day of good hunting. Sounds like you have a functional rapport going over there though?"

"I think so."

"Yessir."  He hasn't found something to dislike about me yet!  Progress!  And I didn't fuck up in front of Traceless' partner ally coworker  colleague friend again!  Now I just have to survive my first 4d dungeon!

"Great. You take good care of my cat, Aumento. Be professional, kitty."

"I'm always professional."

"Is that what that is."

"Yes."

"Yessir, will do.  Cricket'll be fine with me.  If anything, he'll be the one taking care of me."

"That is always the way," agrees Cricket. "You can call Tess on this same call before I hang up."

"Thanks, Cricket, I'll call Tess -" This adds her to the call and as soon as a woman's voice is heard Cricket disconnects.

Kind of weird that he wants to call someone else - wait, it's got to be backlash.  Okay.  Don't think about it!  "What do you normally need in a, uh, lead?  How long should it be?"  I'm about to be led around on a leash.  By a cat.  What a world.

The one Tess ordered should be around... there. He claws the parcel open. "Something like this."

Well, that's a sturdy canvas leash with a solid metal clip on it.  Does it have a rating label?  Yep, looks like it's rated for four hundred pounds worth of weight, which...is probably fine?  He could break it if he really tried, but he's not going to really try.  "I think this should be fine, actually.  I was expecting a normal leash, not something like this."

"Good. Do you have more stuff to do before we go in?"

"Yessir, I just have to check my gear and get my vest on.  I'll be ready in just a few minutes?"  I hate uptalking when I want to be taken seriously, ugghhhh.

"All right." He flaps off to say something to the DRT coordinator, maybe just that they're going ahead as planned.

Probably that the coordinator has a lopsided face, or something.  "Well, that went pretty well.  I'll see you soon?"  He'll gently untangle himself from Summer and give her a jaunty smile.

The coordinator does have a lopsided face but Cricket is very professional and doesn't mention it.

"Yup, I'll be in the tent with the pizza 'n bagels 'n cheesecake I just ordered. When in New York!"

"Enjoy!"  You know, it's funny how I used to think I had the best backlash ever.  Funny how things change.  It doesn't take him too long to suit up.  But just in case, he goes through his kit one more time.  Both pistols, the core detonation charges, medical kit, toolvest.  Spare ammunition.  His leashes.  Carol would laugh herself sick if she saw me wearing a leash.  The thought's a little less painful than it might have been a month ago, but it still brings a twinge of sadness and regret.

Okay.  He's ready.

The portal's up high but it happens to be near some construction scaffolding that Aumento can climb. Cricket, of course, flies.

He's going to trust that the portal will dump people out slow motion style.  He's not the hugest rock climber ever, but he does it pretty often and scaffolding is designed to be climbed.  He checks the scaffolding to make sure it's locked and not going anywhere.  After that, he's up in less than a minute.  "I'll go in first, then turn around and buff you as soon as I see you?"  It's the standard approach for his power.

"All right."

Okay.  He's moments away from entering a dungeon.  He checks over his gear one last time, takes a deep breath.  Puts his goggles on.  Augments himself slightly more than necessary to fend off knives - and leaps.

Hello, alien world.  What's it like on this side of the portal?

Four dimensional dungeons look a lot like three dimensional dungeons, except that the monsters that are appearing out of thin air were actually very close by already and just hiding a millimeter kata, instead of teleporting into place or having been properly invisible. This one looks like a mountainscape: slopes of rock and scrubby plants, snowcapped, chilly, the air a little thin but not enough that it seems like Cricket might have any trouble flying. He can't see any of the vics. A pocketknife on ladybug wings attempts to corkscrew him in the ear. Another goes for his ankle.

Okay, the earknife is a problem, he's wearing earpro and he would like to keep using it.  Thankfully, as a card-carrying Vermonter, he has a finely-tuned reflex for swatting mosquitos without breaking his own skull.  That's one knife down.  The other, he uses to calibrate how much power he needs to protect himself(and Cricket!) from flying knives.  He turns around and raises his pantleg slightly to give the knife free access, so he can gauge power usage without ruining his pants in the first ten seconds of the dungeon.

As soon as Cricket comes through, Cricket's getting augmented.

He comes in and almost immediately blips out of apparent existence and then reappears, lands near Aumento's feet on the slope where the portal lets out, his feathers and tail glitching out of existence. "There are SO MANY knives," he says in alarm. (There's one methodically shredding through the back of Aumento's shirt now, and one interested in stabbing through his left hip pocket. They might cut through the leash just by accident even if they never go after anything other than Aumento himself.) "Have you got me covered? Enough?"

Cricket in four dimensions looks - fluffier. A positively eldritch amount of fluffier. There is an amount of fluff the human mind can comprehend and he's got more than that. And his pupils are four-pointed stars, here, and when he startles at things that Aumento can't see he does it far enough that his ears and wingtips clip out of the thin layer of existence so Aumento can't see those either.

"Yessir, you're good.  More than.  And remember, I can heal you, I can't save you if you're lost…"  He's absentmindedly swatting them as they come - to him, they're less dangerous than mundane mosquitos are to a mundane human.  Mosquitos carry diseases, after all.

... trying to sense where Cricket is is incredibly disorienting, in the literal sense.  Cricket is clearly several feet away.  But his power is insisting he's almost touching Cricket???

"Do I seem lost if I do this?" Cricket asks, slipping ana. He doesn't sound much farther away - actually, the monsters are audible too, not that this allows a human hand to slap them before they descend to the correct level.

"I...uh...My power thinks you're right here, but - I don't see you?"  He looks at the ground, confirms his footing.  Then closes his eyes and tries to inch closer to Cricket, swatting knives as he goes.  His mundane senses are useless, so he'll just follow wherever his power thinks he should.  Probably it won't work, but imagine if it did?

"That is absolutely hilarious to watch. You can't move like that, you clown." The leash goes taut and Cricket comes back into view facefirst. "Here."

The mountains are mostly all still there but they're all new shapes and sizes here, mostly not by a lot.

"It was worth a shot.  Thanks."  Slap swat crash.  WOW I hope the camera doesn't get busted.  "Where to?"

"There's somebody over there on that peak -" Die die die ladybug Leatherman! Hiss! "You can probably do the climb all at this layer if you don't like sliding, it's not the mazeiest." Hiss pounce die diediedie there are a lot of these.

There sure are!  "I'm trusting you to pick a good, uh, layer for me, if you say this one's good then I'll do it."  Time to get to going.  As cavalier as he was about the knives, they're sort of a problem when it comes to climbing.  Usually his own two feet are fine and he can swat as he needs, but once or twice they go after him while he's using hand for balance.

"It's all mountain climbing. If you like sliding fine then maybe there is a bit you'll want to take kata of here so the plants are thinner at the most climbable spot." Cricket sets out, magnanimously not criticizing his bodyguard for not being able to fly or having a funny shaped liver.

"Sliding's fine by me."  He shall follow his feline guide wherever Cricket leads him.  He's got a decent amount of reinforcement on, there's only so much he can get hurt like this.  Even if he falls and cracks his head on a stone, he'd be fine.  Not happy, but fine.

It’s a hike and it’s not shortened by Cricket periodically pausing to increment his pocketknife body count. If Aumento has trouble with any steep parts due to his inferior form they can find a level with a shallower grade. His clothes are likely to be a total loss. Occasionally his power pings like a tiny pair of scissors is after his lungs from the inside and his mosquito slapping reflexes are probably not accustomed to the bugs angling for his knees from within his pants, let alone his intestines from within those.

As much as Tim complains about how his power working equally well everywhere instead of focusing on what’s necessary, there’s something to be said for having reinforced intestines.  And really, these knives aren’t even that bad, in terms of power usage necessary to keep himself unperforated.

Hopefully he’ll be able to make his way to the victim without showing the vic exactly what an esper glowup does under the hood.

Mercifully, the pocketknives have no instincts for what bits are sensitive physically or socially. They seem no likelier to go there than anywhere else.

They reach the correct mountain having swatted fully 630 Swiss army knives between them. There's the vic. Lady pushing sixty, looks cold but not frostbitten, and this dungeon doesn't physically attack vics but she has some scrapes on her hands from rocks or plants, so she might have done a bit of clambering around. She yelps when she sees Cricket.

"Rude," he says, instead of "bitch".

“Good morning, ma’am.  I’m Aumento, this is Cricket.  He’s our guide out of here, he’s the whole reason I was able to reach you.  Are you okay if I use my power on you?  It’ll make you stronger and tougher, heal faster and has a sensory component as well.”

Swat slap smash   He’d love a bug zapper calibrated for flying knives.

"That's a monster," she says, pointing at Cricket.

"Try to control your jealousy," says Cricket.

"I - what?" she says, more confused than offended.

Okay, this is actually hilarious!  Relaxed body language, chill tone of voice.  “Yep!  He’s a rescued monster, he survived his dungeon’s death.  Cricket, may I please pet you?  Just to show that you’re safe?  Uh, for us?” And because you look glorious. He kneels down slightly, swatting away at knives.

"I'm not the one she has to let carry her out," Cricket points out.

Slap swat.  Well.  That's a very reasonable argument.  "Ma'am, I promise you're going to be fine.  I have a reinforcement power, all we have to do is walk out and follow Cricket.  Can you do that for me?"

"I can't see the portal, where is it -"

"It's, uh.  Sort of that-a-way."  He points in what is probably the right direction, if you ignore the kata/ana directions.  "This is a 4-dimensional dungeon, which is where our expert here comes in.  He's the best in the world at this, I'm just his bodyguard.  But we do need to get going, okay?"

"There's other people in here, I could hear them sometimes, but I don't know where, I never saw them. Do you have a water?" she says.

"They can probably hear you from here if you want to shout that we're on the way," says Cricket, looking around in a way that briefly disappears his head and makes the victim shriek again. "Some of them anyway. If you're loud."

It's not like I'm going to alert the knives anymore that I'm here.  "I'm going to be pretty loud."  He inhales once, twice, then hollers at the absolute top of his lungs, with an enhanced diaphragm moving the air.  "RESCUE'S ON THE WAY, FOLKS!  DUNGEON ESPER AND - " uhh how do I say 'dungeon monster cat' without scaring someone fuckit just say something "EMANCIPATED DUNGEON CAT ARE COMING!  SHOULDN'T BE TOO LONG!"

"How do you normally announce yourself to people who can't see you, Cricket?"  Should have asked first, stupid.  Wait, shit.  Not stupid.  Unprepared.  Wait, that's worse than being stupid.  Argh.

The lady covers her ears, and then says, "Water?" again when he's through shouting. "If you want me to walk instead of carrying me like the monster, uh, said?"

"Usually I have my escort do it like you just did," says Cricket. "They vary in how they like to describe me. There is no really polite word for a minority of a couple dozen people who everybody is racist about."

"I'm not racist," snaps the lady. (She's black.)

"Keep telling yourself that," says Cricket, rolling his eyes right out of view and back.

He takes a second, then digs a water bottle out of his vest.  "Yeah, here you go.  Don't mind Cricket, he's - like that.  How long've you been there?"  He also takes a moment to remind himself to ask Cricket how he prefers to be addressed.  ... maybe it'd be better to ask Traceless, given Cricket's attitude.  How does she look, is she in shape for a little hike? 

She chugs the water. She's not injured but she does not look like mountain climbing is her natural habitat. "Overnight."

"You are going to have to carry her at least a little because the portal is not at this w-elevation," says Cricket.

"That's okay, I can climb with her.  Should be easy, especially with you as a guide."  Flattery works with cats, hopefully it works with this cat.  "D'you want a snack bar?  And what's your name?"  He offers her a variety of snack bars - chocolate peanut butter, orange raisin, regular peanut butter, and oats'n'honey, today.

"Florence," says, apparently, Florence. She takes an oats'n'honey and wolfs it down.

"Okay, Florence.  I want to use my power on you, just a little bit.  It'll make you a little stronger and tougher, but also help me keep track of you.  I can save you from getting hurt, I can't save you from getting lost.  Is that okay?"

"Am I going to get lost?!"

"Nope!  Not with my power on you and Cricket to get us both home, I just want to make sure I've got your permission."  Relaxed body language, grin at her a little.  Project confidence.  The relaxed body language may be slightly undercut by a knife-swat.

Cricket is murdering a little pile of knives himself and depositing them in a tidy heap.

"Why do you need permission, is it dangerous?!"

"It's not dangerous to you or anything, it just makes you stronger, and it has a sensory component, which is why I like to ask permission.  D'you mind if I explain it to you while we make our way out of here?"  If I have to pick up and carry an uncooperative old lady I'll do it but I won't feel great about it.

"I can see inside people when I'm in dungeons and explaining this never helps," Cricket tells Aumento sagely.

"You're just supposed to rescue me! What is this, the doctor's office?" exclaims Florence.

He nods slightly at Cricket.  "Well, let's get going, then.  One rescue, coming right up."  He does tag her with the smallest wisp of his power - it's basically free, if you ignore the mild moral peril of using a Sensor-class power on an unwilling victim.  It's not like anyone will be able to prove it, and he has reason to believe she might be or become injured on account of all the goddamn mosquitoknives who are currently trying to corkscrew his abdomen, his left thigh, and his eye protection.

Is she competent to come with him for the first section, or is he going to need to carry her?  He's probably going to have to hold her hand, to let Cricket tug them kata and ana as he sees fit.  If he aumgented her, he could probably put her in a blood choke and not have to deal with talking to her this is a BAD IDEA.

Cricket leads the way back. "You do need to be supporting her weight for her to come along on a slide."

"Yessir.  Okay, Florence.  Ready for me to pick you up?"  She's getting Scooped, but he'd really prefer if she get Scooped willingly.

"For crying out loud, if you came to my place of work I wouldn't ask you if I had permission to do it!"

"Well, I'd hate to startle you."  Scoooooooooop.  "Lead on, Cricket."

Tug tug. (Florence shrieks when the mountains "change shape".)

It is, pretty dramatic, but Tim's ears are not glad that they were part of the esper tune-up.  His are not as sensitive as Menhir's ears, but.  Nobody enjoys shrieking, even through earpro.  And in the meanwhile, he'll just have to deal with mountaineering with zero available hands.  It's a little more expensive in terms of backlash, since he jumps or down up slopes that he normally might have climbed.

Does this kind of jumping provoke more shrieking?

No, that seems fine with her, but she has no useful instincts for how to distribute her weight while he does it.

Honestly, if she doesn't actively cause problems he's going to be happy with it.  He can compensate for awkward landings with increased power use.

The knives are really getting to be annoying when he can't swat them usefully.  Surely the portal isn't far, right?

"It's up and kata of here." Cricket can cover vertically complicated ground a lot faster than Aumento and is laying waste to knives when waiting for him to catch up. "Here, so you can see -" Pull.

(Florence yipes.)

It is pretty startling.  "Got it, thank you.  You're doing a lot of work, clearing those knives out."  True AND nice, perfect.

"The superpower is very helpful for it." Trot trot leap flap. Almost there.

That was basically a compliment!!!!!  Tim wouldn't have expected to get one from Cricket, especially given Cricket's entire everything.  But.  It's enough to put a spring in his step for the final stretch, even with Florence's complaints.

"If you mean to carry her out instead of dropping her I will sit on your shoulder so the knives don't get me."

"Yessir, I think I'd like to carry her out."  Impossibly fluffy kitty!  Impossibly fluffy kitty!!!!

LEAP and then: shouldercat.

(Florence jolts and yelps.)

You know, this yelp is actually pretty valid.  It's...interesting, watching his fur.  And maybe a little dizzying.  He stalls for a moment, ostensibly securing his cargo, then hops through the return portal.

Sure enough, he descends, Florence in hand, Cricket on his shoulder.  Until Cricket decides to fly off, at least.

Cricket glides off during the descent. He has practice using the slow fall from a portal to do fun stalling tricks. Whee!

Yeah, he's not upset with his power at all.  But those tricks do look pretty fun.  "There you go, Florence.  Back on your own two feet.  Support staff are over there, go ahead and check in with them, okay?"

Florence harrumphs and plods off to the support staff to demand additional water and granola bars. A support worker calls Aumento over to pick up an emergency kit for a specific suspected victim of this dungeon, who they've just heard from the bureaucratic grapevine has some health problems, and -

"And will the cat be able to recognize the guy from a picture, in 4D -"

"Wow," says Cricket. "Do you know what 4D means, you stupid idiot?"

"...it means four dimensional, it's just an abbr-"

"And how many dimensions would you be recognizing this guy in, if you met him?"

"Look, I just need to know if you can priorit-"

"Would it possibly be more dimensions than a flat photograph can provide, nincompoop, or are you going to tell me that you can only recognize people from holograms -"

Tim is going to intervene before this turns into a catfight frank exchange of opinions.  He doesn't try to rely on his size to intimidate people, but in this case he's perfectly happy to loom slightly and speak in a slightly louder tone of voice than usual.  "Cricket is the only reason we're able to do a dungeon like this, and he's just as capable of recognizing someone from a photo as I am.  We'll be perfectly fine."  In the meanwhile, he'd like to confirm details on the emergency kit, check that it's moderately knife-proof, and tuck it into his slightly disheveled vest.  Probably not going to last the rest of the day, which is a bummer.  Usually there's only damage on the outsides of these things...

"They say he'll tell people they have asymmetrical kidneys, how should I know if he can see faces -"

"I can see faces. And I can hear you talking about me in the third person. I am a four-dimensional cat, not a third-person cat. Is there anything else besides that you want this guy rescued next?" says Cricket witheringly.

It would be easier to be annoyed at this guy without Cricket being hilarious.  Instead, Tim notes down the guy's description, he'll see about an intervention later.  Bill had impressed upon him that almost nothing was more important than not alienating the completely, literally, irreplaceable native 4D dungeon guide. "I'm ready, if there aren't any operational constraints we need to know about."

"Great." Back to the scaffold. Cricket flies up and waits for Tim to climb.

It's faster, this time.  He's up the ladder in under thirty seconds.  He waves at Cricket.  "See you on the other side," he says, before jumping through the portal.

Cricket follows promptly. "Two hundred feet?" he says. "I have not seen that guy already so I want to get up to the peak and maybe fly a bit higher than that, see if I can spot him."

"Uh, I hadn't said anything because I wanted to be sure, but.  My power thinks you're right on top of me, even though you're a few feet away from me, in 3D space.  It's why I closed my eyes to try to find you, before.  I think it should be fine to go further than two hundred feet, but.  This is my first 4D dungeon and I promised to take good care of you."

"If I can do that I should be flying that guy his emergency kit without waiting for you to crawl around the mountains, once I see him."

"Yessir.  Do you have a radio, in case something happen?"  And does he have a tactical dungeon catpack, for that matter?

(Tim also has Knives.  As many Knives as any human could possibly want.  More than that, really.  They're in the process of getting swatted.)

"I did but I think a knife got it." He's got a little bag on him, yup. The fluff resents it and is trying to swallow it. "If I am quick maybe nothing important in the kit will be stabbed before I get it there. Clip it on for me."

"Yessir.  Ten or twenty minutes should be fine at this strength at anything less than a quarter mile, but I'll have to take a break if you get that far."  He really really doesn't like letting a charge get this far away, especially if there's a risk of a backlash spike.  The only reason he's considering this is because A: it really seems safe, B: Cricket thinks it'll be safe and he's literally the world expert on 4D navigation, and C: he's right next to the portal, he can hold on 'til he passes out and just fall through the portal and recover later.

Cricket gets the emergency kit.  "Good luck, I'll see you soon."

"There there," says Cricket condescendingly, and he takes off and is out of view presently.

He spends the time waiting for Cricket to signal him swatting knives and trying to orient himself to Cricket's location.  His power, perhaps for the first time, is really not cooperative about where Cricket is.  "Right there" doesn't actually help when you can't point to "right there".  It's interesting enough to take his mind mostly off the knifesquitos, at least.

The knifesquitos don't have anything better to do than try to stab him (and Cricket). Cricket, as a four dimensional being, is never poked in the internals, only the fluff (and the nose, and the toebeans, etcetera). Eventually Tim can feel him settle onto a mountainside and paw at the clip.

He's not actually all that good at waiting.  Can he see Cricket from here?  He's also going to see if he can reach out to Cricket via radio, maybe it won't work.  But if he does nothing, it definitely won't work.

He can't see Cricket.

"What is it? I am still knifeproof, are you going to keel over?" asks Cricket's voice over the comm.

"Nossir, range is fine.  I wanted to know if you think I should go to you and the vic."  Swat slap crunch.  He's been tossing the knife "corpses" through the portal, on the theory that it could turn out to be a fantastic dungeon material.  Hopefully nobody minds.  If they do, they can reply with a paper airplane or something.

"Yes, I'll come get you once he has his meds. It looks like it will be a worse hike than the last."

"Yessir.  I'll wait for you."  He thumbs off the radio, feeling vaguely dissatisfied that he can't just walk to the dang cat.  But it's not just a casual Sunday stroll, it's a 4D dungeon, and if Cricket tells him to wait near the portal he can do that.

If he'd realized he'd be waiting near the portal, he might have asked for a bunch of boxes, to catch knives.  But he can't leave the dungeon without dropping protection on Cricket.  Oh well.

Smack and catch and crush and swat... 

Cricket reappears, seizes the leash, and pulls. "This way. This one is definitely going to need to be carried."

"Yessir."  He will be lead by the cat, wherever the cat may bring him.  He will marvel at his life, but it's not substantially weirder than the last four months of his life.

... he's going to pick up the pace, too.  "How bad is it?"

"I'm not a doctor but he didn't say anything and he was lying down and his pulse was all over the place."

Shit.  Okay.  How about a light, sustainable jog, terrain depending.  Counterintuitively, light use of his power can help a bit on jogs - it's easier to propel your body.  Marathons would be a problem, though.  He's guessing he has another two or three hours left in him, depending on the victim's status.

The victim, when they get there - Cricket pulls Tim around a lot more on this hike to get around obstacles and find favorable slope angles - is a big guy, conscious and able to look at Tim but clearly not doing so hot. He's got socks on (no shoes) but his fingers and ears are visibly suffering from inadequate circulation.

Well, Tim's a pretty big guy, too, and has to be a baseline amount of augmented to handle this dungeon.  "Hey, sir, how are you feeling?  I'm Aumento, I'm a rescue esper."  He throws his power over the guy like a blanket - what's wrong with this guy?  And can his power help fix it?

The power certainly isn't doing him any harm. Looks like he's got General Fuckuppedness of the Circulatory System, a highly technical diagnosis that only qualified professionals like Tim can dispense. He blinks at Tim but doesn't say anything.

"This is not a hospital, it is a dungeon. Pick him up and hand him over to someone who can call him an ambulance," snaps Cricket.

"Okay, I just need you to stay like you are, okay?  No need to move, just let me do all the hard work.  Just relax and ride the Esper Express."  Tim hates General Fuckuppedness, it's too common and a real problem for everyone involved.  He's going to lift the gentleman, consider his options, and increase his own power use slightly.  "Alright there, sir?"

Cough cough goes the guy. Cricket fishes the leash out from where it's wedged between them and gets airborne again for a good yanking angle.

Yeah, he's going to be fine, with Tim's power on him.  But.  He really ought to get out of here sooner rather than later.  He'll follow the flying kitty at best speed, which is determined largely by how good a rider this guy is.

The guy is not fighting him or anything beyond squirming a little to get into a better position for his labored irregular breaths.

Cricket is definitely acting like he's in a hurry, which means lots of shapeshifting mountains and less getting distracted by knife-murdering. Here's the mountain with the portal on it.

Aww, Cricket cares!  Sort of.  In his own misanthropic way.  Tim's going to have to suffer the flying corkscrews of misfortune with patience and grace and superpowers, given that Cricket isn't thinning the swarm out.  But he's fine, he's functionally unstabbable.  "Ready to land on me again, Cricket?"

Yup here is a shouldercat.

Aww, he's fluffy.  He doesn't dilly-dally this time, though.  He pops through and falls -

"We've got your problem patient here!  He's got, uh, circulatory issues, he's not oriented - " Tim hands the poor guy off and gives as thorough a report as possible.  Which isn't really much.  "He looks bad and his breathing right and I think he's deoxygenated.  My power keeps fixing little bits of damage all over, which I think is oxy-dep but that's guesswork, I'm not Uisa.  I've also got him augmented, right now, so don't provoke him."  Someday I'll be as good as her at diagnostics, that part I can improve on.

There is an ambulance waiting! The paramedics are happy to take over with the guy, who was kidnapped direct out of an ER.

Excellent.  He'll send them off, and then take a few minutes to note down his impressions of what was wrong, then task Bill with getting the information where it needs to go.  How many more victims are there?  He could maybe use a break, he burned twice as much backlash on Circulatory Fuckuppedness Guy as on Florence.

"We estimate another six."

"I've spotted six, but could have missed some. Do you have holograms of them?" Cricket asks innocently.

The guy groans and gets pictures.

"Haven't seen that guy, and saw one teenage girl you don't have listed."

"If we don't have reason to believe they're moving around, it might make sense to leave me at the portal and let Cricket get the victims on his own.  Uh, if you think that's a good idea, Cricket?"  Maybe Summer would be willing to come in, too, but maybe not.  It'd probably be backlash-neutral with her around.

"They looked like they were staying put. But it will only work if they can climb mountains and are not too racist. For most people even doing one of those is too hard."

Tim heaves a sigh.  Do not alienate the monster cat.  "Yeah, it'd be too easy if vics were sensible.  I think I'd like a break, if there's no other reason for urgency than the usual."  Maybe if I continue to not alienate Cricket, I'll get to pet him in 4D.

"Suit yourself." He finds a friendly looking standard issue lawn chair and curls up in it with his wings folded neatly. Zzz. Cats don't need guiding but do need sleep.

Summer is in the tent she picked out earlier, with a box full of neatly lined up pizza crusts beside her. "Hey there. I have dedicated the last while of squashing my stressball to you, c'mere," she says. "I was expecting you to go longer, are there like zillions of knives in there?"

"Hey, Summer.  There are so many knives in there, but knives aren't a problem.  The real problem was the last guy, he got taken out of a hospital.  Had to hustle."  He strips out of his vest and shirt, then strips down to his shorts and cuddles up.

"Oh man, what a rude dungeon. Don't people in the hospital have enough to deal with?" She snuggles with one arm free for her miniature cheesecake assortment. "Do you want one of these, they're pretty good but one of them is frangipane flavored and I'm not into it."

"Sure, I'll try it."  Aah?  He can't possibly feed himself, he has guiding to do!

She pops it into his mouth; it's bite sized and almondy. "How's the cat, is he warming up to you?"

Nomf.  Well, he's not going to be blaring this at the top of his lungs, but he probably doesn't need to Esper Whisper, either.  "He's...kind of a huge asshole.  But he's also focused on the mission, which I like.  And he's, uh.  People don't know how to act around him, which.  Is fair.  But some of them are also assholes to him, which isn't."

"People are assholes to him? Like, before he starts it? But he's so cute..."

"Well, I mean, he's adorable.  But there was this one guy who didn't know if Cricket would recognize a photograph in 4D, wouldn't take correction, and then kept talking about Cricket like he wasn't there.  Which would have made sense if Cricket were an actual cat instead of just dungeon magic made in the shape of a cat."

"Am I not supposed to call him a cat, is that offensive?"

"I have no idea."  He thinks about it for a second, then shrugs.  "Traceless called him 'kitty', so it's probably fine?  But - the guy was acting like Cricket just couldn't possibly be as smart as a human."  He shrugs against Summer's ribs.  "He probably didn't mean to be an asshole, but.  He was anyway."

Summer eats her passionfruit cheesecake bite thoughtfully. "Probably random people shouldn't call him kitty even if we can call him a cat."

"Yeah, probably.  Anyway, I think I like him?  He's pretty competent, and if he's tetchy, well, so be it.  Lot of people are.  And I think he cares, too."

"Not a whole lot of other reason to do dungeons. Well, I guess money, maybe he wants money."

"Ehhh.  I don't...maybe?  I think - most people are good, and you can tell because of espers, right?  There's no way to become an esper except to get lucky, it's just random people.  And so many of us do dungeons and guide and generally do useful stuff.  But, I asked Bill for the math once.  Even D-rank espers can afford to retire after a year or two, and S-rank healers can retire after a few months, probably.  I think it's probably fair to call him a B or A-rank equivalent, I bet he could have retired by now if he really wanted to."

"He's like ten years old or so, did you know? I looked him up."

"Yeah, I looked at Traceless' blog at one point when I was at the clinic, he responded to my comment and everything.  Didn't remember it, but.  It's not like I'm anyone special.  I bet he wouldn't have to run any dungeons if he didn't want to."

"He could just have a normal number of jobs for a cat... though maybe he likes being 4D? And that's dungeons only."

"Well, working cats are a thing, in barns or whatever.  But - in the dungeon, when it was clear that there was someone injured, he really hustled us in and out.  Not that we were slacking before, but.  I think he does care, in his own cranky way."

"That’s sweet."

"And you'd know sweet, hm?"  Tim props himself up enough to grin down at Summer, then leeeaaans over to swipe a piece of whatever cheesecake's closest.

"I’m the expert. Was that my coconut one? Harsh. I'll have to get coconut boba to compensate."

"It was pretty good, too.  Delicious."  As if she isn't just going to eat another one.  I can't imagine how much she has to eat with that backlash.  "What's been your favorite so far?"

"I think in this batch the best was the raspberry white chocolate."

"Usually a good flavor."  A little too sweet for me, but.  She's the one who needs eight thousand calories a day, can't fault her for doing it efficiently.  "D'you mind picking something good for me in an hour or two?  You always have the best picks."

"Can do, I've got recommendations for NYC locked and loaded."

Tim grins.  "You're the best food guide I've ever had."  He sets himself an alarm for twenty-eight minutes and catnaps, inspired by Cricket's shining example.  One of the upsides of his power backlash is his ability to fall asleep almost anywhere.

And then he's back in action!  Is Cricket still claiming that DRT lawnchair as a throne?

Zzzzzz.

Well, shit.  It's illegal to wake up a sleeping cat, his partner warned him.  He'll...outsource his decisionmaking process, he doesn't have to be smart enough to figure out the right choice.  He just has to know who already knows the right choice.

Good morning, Traceless.  What's the best way to wake up Cricket?

Ring ring.

Oh shit that's going to wake up the cat.  Tim skedaddles, relatively quietly, and answers.  "Hello?"

"Hey I am presently too backlashed to read and don't know what you said, is everything okay?"

"Uh, yessir."  Man that's such an awful backlash, I need to remember to check what it is again.  "Uh, I just wanted to know the best way to, uh.  Wake up Cricket."  Without pissing off the dungeon monster cat who can leave me trapped in 4D space with zero ability for me to ever escape.

... maybe I should have thought more about this whole thing.

"I can call him if you don't want to just holler?"

"If he won't be, uh.  Irritated?  I can wake him up, just.  I've never worked with, uh.  Him.  Or anything like him before.  And he's impossible to replace, I'd hate to make him unwilling to run dungeons because I annoyed him."

"He might at worst blacklist you as an individual, and you are free to do the reverse if he's stressing you out, you wouldn't be the first - but he's not specifically touchy about being woken up while he's at a dungeon. He needs more sleep than a human but it can be broken up smaller, it's like his equivalent of a guiding break. He sleeps soundly so you'll have to raise your voice a bit."

"Nossir, he's been great.  I guess I was being kind of st-silly," Tim corrects himself.  Can't say that anymore!  Even if it's probably true no, it's not true, it's not impossible that he'd stop running dungeons because of one esper, it just hasn't happened yet.

"He's a very good kitty deep down. Do you want me to call him?"

"Nossir, I've got this.  Thank you very much for your time.  Um, d'you need to call someone else before we hang up?"  Loneliness!  That was his backlash, I remember now.  Okay, that explains the phone calls.  If not the illiteracy.  I'll check his blog in a bit.

"I would appreciate the overlap! If you've always wanted to be introduced to Doc Shoeswala the dungeon physicist now's your chance." Ring ring.

"I don't think I did, thank you."  Tim chuckles sensibly, waits for the two of them to get to chitchatting, then pads over to Cricket.  His instinct is to get down on Cricket's level, but that's a silly instinct and instead he'll stand like a civilized human being.  "Uh, Cricket?"  He starts softly, but will get gradually louder.

It requires, not quite yelling, but being pretty loud, before Cricket yawns awake. "You and whatsherface done in the tent?"

"Yessir.  Ready whenever you are."  He's got his dungeoneering outfit, although he's chosen to discard certain elements of it.  There's no need for a bulletproof plate when there are no threats on the scale of a bullet and also they're stabbing him internally half the time anyway.  Similarly, the guns are gone.  The only dedicated weapons left are the core detonation charges.

Cricket stretches and then takes off for the scaffolding where there's a pile of dead knives. He lands well away from them. "Slob."

Tim is moderately confused until he gets to the top of the scaffolding, then scowls.  "Yeah, that's a trip hazard."  And with these final words, he cheats a little and leaps for the portal.  As usual, he is poked ineffectually.  And as usual, he begins the mosquito/knife-swatting dance of his people.

"It's a laceration hazard. They're knives and they didn't fold up when you killed them. If you're too polite to somebody who wants to walk on their own, they will shoulder out of the portal before you and they will step on one without your power on and get tetanus," says Cricket as he follows, "and it'll be all your fault. I'm flinging mine into the bushes where you wouldn't walk anyway."

I can just heal them and it’ll be like nothing ever happened that is not a reasonable solution. “Good point.  D’you mind popping back out for a second and asking someone to get a dustpan?  I wanted to save them in case they’re crazy good dungeon materials for…something.”

I should have just told someone to clean up the knife monster corpses.  I assumed someone would.

"Uuuuugh finnnnne," says Cricket, and he steps out of the dungeon for a moment and is back a moment later. "Anyone's guess if they'll do what I say purely because it's an obvious good idea, of course," he mutters. "You should have a cardboard box or something on the next run. They'll poke through a bag and you're mangling them too much to fold."

"Yessir, that's a good idea.  I had assumed someone would clean it up, but.  Apparently nobody wants to touch a box of dead dungeon sharps.  Anyway.  I'll follow you wherever you lead me?"

"This" diediedie pocketknife "way." In they go.

That way they go!  He's getting oddly used to being led around on a leash by a talking dungeon cat.  He had been meaning to go for a hike for a little while, and this definitely qualifies.  The scenery is bleakly beautiful, too.  It's a shame he's going to kill this dungeon for being a kidnapping little knife-happy shit.

They can rescue this chatty mom who has been keeping her neighboring victims company and strongly feels they should go get Rhonda next after her and who wants to know if they have news about her kids and who can be shut up with a water bottle.

Tim will cheerfully give her a water bottle.  He doesn't mind chit-chatting, but they're on a schedule today.  While she's distracted, he'll check with Cricket.  "D'you think it's worth getting multiple vics before we head back?  Or do they only sound like they're closeby?"

"HEY WHICH ONE OF YOU IS RHONDA, WAVE YOUR ARM IF YOU'RE RHONDA," Cricket calls, looking around. "...Yeah, she looks like she can walk and isn't far out of the way."

"Okay.  Let's grab her and hit the road, buffing four people like this isn't much more expensive than three.  C'mon, ma'am, you can tell me about your kids while we hike?"  That usually gets them distracted from the whole kidnapping thing.

She will tell him about her kids! They know that if her dungeon alarm goes off they are supposed to wait for their aunt to come get them but she got taken in the middle of the night and is not sure if they will have a good day at school if the alarm woke them up. Rhonda joins the party and they can make their way back with minimum sliding (since the vics don't have leashes it's kind of a pain in the neck to shove them around). They need help on the steep sections but are game to just climb when they can.

Tim can and will pick up two people simultaneously should this prove necessary or fun and can be pulled around on a leash while this happens!  At this point, being ineffectually stabbed is kind of boring.  He's happy to walk his charges through minor rock climbing, as long as they go first so he can catch them if there's a problem.  And because if he's near them, the knives might spook 'em.  Knives might not like victims, but they like him just fine, unfortunately.

But aside from being 4D, this honestly isn't a bad dungeon.  He feels like it should be a B-rank, but he doesn't make the rules.

When they come out somebody has collected the ejected monster corpses into a metal wastebasket.

Great, fantastic.  "Glad they listened to you."  Is there, by any chance, a spare wastebasket he can bring into the dungeon?  He's sure that there's going to be more knife corpses, and maybe they'll even be useful for something good someday.  Maybe he'll swipe one and put it on display the MRCRF.

No one has anticipated his need for a spare wastebasket.

Well, dump the metal wastebasket into a cardboard box and give him the metal one.  Or give him the cardboard box.

I wish Bill ran this joint.  He solves problems like it’s his job.  Because it is.

He can have a cardboard box!

Well, he’d love something sturdier than a cardboard box, but sure.  Fine.  Whatever.  Leave it at the entrance, he’ll fill it later.

He can make another run in and wait for Cricket.  Once Cricket’s in, he’ll follow Cricket wherever Cricket thinks is best.

Cricket picks another vic and leads him on another hike. The knives keep coming and they don't stop coming. Collectively. Individual ones are quite stoppable.

Individual knives are very stoppable and not, actually, noteworthy except insofar as a dungeon feature is notable.  He hasn't stopped blinking about the knives, but that's about the level of response they get now.

... Hm.  His leash is starting to fray a bit after one confused beetleknife clipped it on the approach.  Not badly, but he'll take a moment to put a knot in that section so it's hopefully more resilient to flying beetleknives.

Cricket observes this without comment. Then he cranes his neck into the fourth dimension so his head disappears, for a better look, and chooses a path around some thorny plants. No point courting more clothing damage than necessary.

Tim notices, and smiles about it!  More evidence that Cricket is actually thoughtful!  It's not, actually, proof that Cricket likes him, it's just proof that Cricket is exhibiting common decency toward him.  But it's weight on the scale.

The next victim is catching a little sleep but very lightly; he sits up when they're close and is capable of walking. "I hiked around, when I first showed up here, in case it was one you can just leave. I was in one you could just leave, back in 2022. But I didn't see it anywhere, or any other people..."

"It's a 4D one!  You can just walk out, if you have the best 4D navigator in the world available."  And if you're not being swarmed by 4D knives.  "There are folks around, but they're on different, uh, slices of the dungeon.  Here, have a granola bar or two, take your pick but the peanut butter got opened by a knife a few minutes ago."  Once the vic is fed and watered, he'll happily head to the next victim or the exit, as his navigator deems fit.

"The knives are probably pretty sanitary, I'll take the peanut butter. How does the winged cat get you to another... slice...?"

"His name's Cricket, and he was originally from a dungeon  Look at his fur, like, really look at it for a second.  See how it's kinda glitching out?  It's not like that normally.  Super cool, right?"  Peanut butter granola bar has been distributed.

"This is normal," Cricket counters. "It is merely not like this most of the time."

"Holy cow, he talks."

"Anyway the answer to your question is that I am going to shove you." Cricket disappears and shoving ensues. He does Tim next.

"Ah, sorry, Cricket.  I'm not used to it yet."  Tim is going to pretend that the shoving never happened, and if it did happen it was completely normal and unremarkable anyway.  Emotions are mildly contagious, and he wants calm to be the only contagion he's spreading.

Cricket leads them on a hike that is all on the portal layer, since this guy is up to it. He is beginning to attempt, while they catch up to him on steep sections, to refine a technique for taking a knife intact. He doesn't have it down yet.

Well, he had planned on just grabbing a knife and putting it in a box.  But since the best the local DRT can scare up is a cardboard box, perhaps he had best leave knife-grabbing to the professional kitty.  He's also starting to wonder how to find the core, if the answer isn't "relax by the portal while Cricket does it".

The thing is the knives' wings are surprisingly fragile and any level of imperviousness confers enough strength that it's a little difficult to catch one delicately. Cricket can catch a knife alive, but he wants it pristine, for the zoo, in the unlikely event it lives, or a museum if it doesn't. Also separately these things could absolutely saw their way out of cardboard. He's just practicing till the cage from Tess is available, and then he'll need a way to hold onto it in 4D to carry it through to the portal and safely tuck it away in said cage, because the cage will be three-dimensional and putting a knife in it would be like drawing a line on the floor around a normal organism, within the dungeon space.

The hiker victim hikes, and steps out.

"Do you need a break?" Cricket inquires, watching a knife hooked through the coil of the corkscrew on his claw struggle.

"Nossir, I'm good to go.  Do we have a plan for finding the core?" He's a little tired, but it's easy-explained by the fact that he's done hiking in an alien 4-dimensional space and at least occasionally carrying people around.  And this is his only dungeon for the day, and he'd love to put a 4D notch in his belt.

"I think it might be buried in a snowcap. You can help me dig when the victims are out."

"Yessir."  In that case, he'll put in a requisition for a VERY sturdy shovel.  He doesn't generally carry one, too little benefit in most dungeons.  But he's ready for another run whenever his feline overlord is.

He's also curious why Cricket thinks it would be there but he has no desire to engage too much with Cricket, lest he offend somehow.  He hasn't received a Cricket-Determined Flaw as yet and he'd like to keep that from happening if at all possible.

He hasn't asked and Cricket is being soooo professional.

Next vic is a young lady with a bad hangover who's been eating the snow. This does not seem to have poisoned her.

Well, in the scouting world the worst to happen is you get an intestinal parasite or the runs.  In a dungeon, it'll either be terrible because the dungeons actually have some kind of trace contaminant that gives you hepatitis or it'll be fine because there's no germy ecosystem to infect you.

Either way, she's getting two water bottles.  He doesn't bother carrying any OTC painkillers, if you're in pain in a dungeon you need something faster-acting and stronger than ibuprofen.

She appreciates the water bottles. "Hi kitty! Are you a trained monster? Can I pet you?" she says, in the sort of rhetorical way people sometimes say this to animals, already reaching.

Cricket disappears ana and doesn't dignify this with a response otherwise. Maybe Tim can be useful here.

Yep that's absolutely his cue to intercept.  "That's Cricket, he's a person and also the best 4D dungeoneer in the world."  Also your ticket out of here.  "He's doing all the work, today, I'm just here for my power."  And carrying things.  And maybe someday he'll let me pet him...

"He's... obviously a monster kitty?" says the girl, between swigs of water, looking around like Cricket might just be behind something.

"Yes'm, and he's the only reason I'm able to reach you.  This is a 4D dungeon, he can move us kata and ana.  He'll get us out of here in a jiffy."  Chivvy the Civvy before Cricket gets sick of her.

"Ha ha, cat-a..." She is pretty amenable to following Tim around. Cricket tells him to pick her up for the leash-pulling when it comes up.

Tim's here to carry people, chew bubblegum, and be pulled around by a moderate-sized monster dungeon kitty.  And he's all out of bubblegum.  She can go piggyback for a while.  Bridal-style can be...fraught.

She is tolerant of the piggyback arrangement. "Do you get to pet him since he's your kitty?"

"I absolutely am not his kitty," snaps Cricket.

"OH my god he talks."

Okay, watching Cricket get mad at people is a little funny.  "I did say he was a person!  He, uh, lives with Traceless, the stealth esper.  He hasn't let me pet him, yet."  But hope springs eternal.

"My mom says her schnauzer is a person, I didn't think you meant he talked!"

“Ah, I see the confusion.  At any rate, he is a talking person, with his own opinions, and he chooses who he lets pet him.”  Keeping the subject off the nine stabs per minute he is currently receiving is an excellent idea.

"Wonders never cease. If he's not yours how come you're with him instead of the other esper?"

"Well, you might've noticed how I haven't gotten stabbed even a little bit?  My power gives me toughness and strength, and it lets me give other people that strength and toughness.  I'm just here to make sure Cricket stays safe."  Which is mildly stressful but I can deal with it.  "He's doing all the real work."

"I know they look sharp but they haven't hurt me at all..."

"Yeah, they like you just fine, it's people like me and Cricket they hate."  Do not say 'playing with their food'...  "Dungeons don't usually hurt the people they kidnap, as long as we get you out."  Before you vanish forever to a mountain hell dimension full of flying knives forever.

"The ones you hear about all hurt people."

"Well, they'd be hurting me if they could.  Good thing this isn't one of the really scary dungeons, eh?"

"It could be worse. But my brother was in one that was like, a concert. He needed to go to the doctor about his ears after but he said the music actually kind of kicked ass."

"Huh, that would make a good story!  What kind of music was it, rock?  Or classical at ninety-eight decibels?"

"Kinda techno-y."

He gives a hum of acknowledgement, which is punctuated by a slap to the back of his head where a knife was trying to drill him.  "Makes sense, techno's usually pretty loud."  Sounds worse than flying knives.  For me, anyway.

"AAAH that was RIGHT by my face man."

Whoops.  "Sorry, it's like mosquito season around here.  But with knives."  That actually could have been bad.  How about his backpack gets a splash of power, and he can work on catching and crushing knives instead of slapping them.

She doesn't appear to notice. "Are you catching all of them, how are they not ever nicking you -?"

"It's my power.  You could hit me with a truck and I'd walk away just fine.  Same with Cricket, right now, since I'm giving it to him."  To demonstrate, he grabs a knife from the air, crumples it, and demonstratively pokes himself in the bicep a few times.  "Doesn't extend to my equipment, sadly, but.  It's still a pretty nice power."

"I wasn’t going to ask about your clothes but I don’t think Goodwill will take them after this."

"Yeah, they're pretty much done for.  I get sent to dungeons with lots of like, ambient hazards, but my power only works on people.  So I have to have a lot of spares back at the portal.  I'm going to have to change next time I take a break."

"Ohohoho," she says, like she has read fanfictions about what espers do on breaks.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.  Well, she would've been right a few months ago.  Tim does not, actually, have any way to positively contribute to this conversation.  If he denies it, she won't believe him.  If he says 'no comment', she'll take it as an admission of guilt fuckin'.  It is entirely possible that a different human being would be able to deflect this indecorous chortling in a graceful manner.

But Tim's odds of flying are significantly better than his odds of navigating this particular social jungle.

She does not follow up with any more indecorous chortling/questions/etc., at least. She seems to think it's cool when the mountains slide through different shapes when they're pulled about, and walks out of the portal with a "thank you!"

He gives her a two-finger salute.  "You're very welcome!"  He then turns to the navigator kitty.  "I should have another few runs like that in me, these aren't too bad at all.  How many more vics do we have?"

"If I've seen them all, eight."

"Okay, call it forty minutes a vic...that's another three hours, minimum.  And then we want to find the core.  Do you need a break at all?"

"I’ll nap when you take breaks. I might want you to order me sashimi. I will pay for it, phones are just not designed for cats."

"Yessir, can do.  I should be able to do another two or three runs, then I might want to take a nap."

"Okay." He picks the next direction. "Might be able to get two on this route if neither needs to be carried."

"That's a lot easier on me, if you can arrange it."  He's being considerate, I think!  More evidence he might like me.  Or at least not hate me.

They’ve got an older lady who doesn’t speak English, only Javanese, but she’s really happy to see Tim!

Tim will attempt Spanish and French and extremely halting American Sign Language, but he can get by with pantomime if necessary.  And if she doesn't speak English, it means that Cricket won't get offended, probably.

None of those is Javanese! Pantomime suffices to get her following. She's pretty spry for how grey her hair is and doesn't seem threatening enough to Cricket that he won't shove her separately from Tim so she needn't be carried.

The other vic on the same mountain (a bit kata and around the other side) is a guy in his thirties. He heard Tim speaking Spanish and greets them in that rather than English without clarifying whether English would also work for him.

Tim's happy to speak Spanish!  He grew up only ever speaking Spanish at home, it's nice to feel a little nostalgic for a moment.  He might find Tim's accent a touch odd, but they're mutually intelligible enough.

And this guy can also walk and climb so they can go out in a batch to the portal! And also Cricket doesn't speak Spanish and cannot be offended when the guy asks how expensive he was!

Tim advises him, in Spanish, that the kitty is a person and makes more money in a month than Tim and his partners make in a year.  And to go relax, he’s earned it after all the time spent trudging through the liminal mountains.

(Is he exaggerating for effect?  Possibly.  Will he admit it?  Probably not)

When Tim goes to take a break, Cricket announces that he wants eight ounces of sake and two ounces of bluefin from a specific place in Brooklyn delivered and that Tim can send Tess an invoice for it, and then curls up on his lawnchair to catch some Z's.

Summer's waiting in the tent. She has a blue cheese burger and onion rings and jalapeno poppers now.

Tim doesn't outsource everything to Bill.  He's perfectly competent to order a specific thing from a specific place according to specific instructions.  "Hey, Summer.  How's it all going?"

"The Hawks lost. Otherwise fine. You holding up okay?"

"Li'l tired, but I'm doing okay.  I've never seen so many knives in my life, though."  After the ritual Partial Undressing, he'd like to curl around Summer from behind.  "The 4D, uh, slides are really something, too.  Never seen anything like it in my life."

Pet pet. "I heard at a mixer once it makes some people queasy."

Oh, no.  Cozy pets.  His only weakness.  "Yeah, I can see it.  This dungeon wasn't too bad, but it's pretty weird.  My power thinks Cricket's about three inches away from me, but my eyes know that's not the case."

"Wild! Is that... a 4D thing somehow...?"

"I guess?  I don't really know, I thought it was a Cricket thing at first, but then another victim had the same thing happen.  Maybe it's just this dungeon, or if we're really lucky it'll be all 4D dungeons."

"How did a vic have the same thing happen?"

"Like, they all feel close to me?  I don't really know how to explain it - I could tell they were near even if they weren't."  He stifles a yawn in Summer's shoulderblade.  "Scuse me."

"You can nap." Pet pet.

"Mmm...m'kay.  Just for a little bit."  He dozes off after a few minutes with an arm over Summer's midsection.  He does wriggle around in his sleep a bit.  Hopefully Summer doesn't mind having her partner draped all over her.

Not at all. Feels cozy and nourishing.

Then in about an hour, Tim will wake up with an arm wrapped over Summer's sternum, a leg draped over her waist and thigh, and his head resting on her shoulder.  He's perfectly content to revel in the doubled alertness of "Not backlashed anymore!" and "Just woke up from a nap after hours of moderately-hard labor!".

He's feeling pretty good about his life choices right now.

She’s let her backlash go down with his so she has not yet replaced her takeout and is sipping water instead. "Next run your last?"

"Yeah, hope so.  We've got almost everyone out, I think, unless we find another couple people Cricket missed.  Now we just have to find the core and go home, the looters can do what they do best."

"Is there anything good in there?"

He chuckles into the crook of Summer's neck.  "Well, if you ever wanted a pocketknife...But I don't really know, apart from those.  They try to grab as much as they can, you never know what'll be the next marble."

"Oh, would one work as a pocketknife for real, that would actually rule."

"I think they're a little big for it.  I'll grab one for you, if you want, there's thousands of them.  It'll be at least a little squished, though."

"Long as it still folds up and is still sharp where it's supposed to be."

"Oh, they're pretty sharp, alright," Tim grumbles for a moment.  Then he sighs.  "No, - they're not even that dangerous, to me.  It's just a lot to hold that much backlash constantly."

"...would it make sense for me to go with you?"

Tim's initial thought is 'Sure, why not?' but he actually should not go off half-cocked.  "Um - maybe?  It's not like it's a hard dungeon or anything, and it's pretty safe as long as nothing happens to me or Cricket.  But you'd be constantly trusting me and Cricket with your life, and I don't," Tim pauses, his words slowing as he visibly thinks about the question.  "It's a lot to trust me with, and Cricket.  I can do it, don't get me wrong, but - it is lot for you to trust me."

"...yeah, I almost thought 'if something did happen the next team would have one more rescue to do' but the dungeon would, like, notice, that, I'm not one of its victims."

"Yeah.  There really isn't a safety net, just me."  Tim is okay with taking that risk, but he trusts his power the way he trusts his legs: they've never failed him unless he abused them.

"I guess the Dwarves do this all the time though?"

"Yeah.  It's kinda funny, my power - it's like it wants me to take five Joe Randoms and turn 'em all into espers.  A lot of my 'solo clears' are actually me and three Dwarves.  The system marks them as 'support personnel'."

"Whereas I am an esper but not really that kind."

"You're the cuddly kind.  I'd've had to give up on this one halfway through, without you around."  He pats her side, where his arm is draped.

"I am very useful and look cute doing it! It sounds kind of fun to hike around in the dungeon with you but maybe I should try it for the first time where if there's a problem I have to run away instead of one where if there's a problem I die."

"Out to sabotage my record for 'solo' clears, huh?  I see how it is."  Tim chuckles a little bit.  "I'd be happy to have you along in some other dungeon, whenever you want."

"If there's a cotton candy dungeon I will have great camo."

"If you ever wind up having kids, you're gonna have to explain why other people are eating Maman's hair."

"...I don't think I'm gonna do that but maybe I'll explain it to nieces and nephews someday."

He winces a little bit, wracks his brain for a way to gracefully change the topic, and fails to find one.  "Ah, sorry.  Not my business, really."

"If I were going to it would be job relevant, I couldn't rack up backlash till they were born!"

Well, okay, she's not mad about it.  That's a relief.  "You know what I mean, though, it's not like I get a vote on it."  Normally he might give her a gentle elbow, but to do that he'd have to first draw back from her, and he's perfectly content where he is.

"That is quite true." Her sisters might tease her, but he's obviously getting somewhere with Menhir and Summer is just a cuddly co-worker and he's really a little too young for her though the age gap might seem smaller in like five years.

Tim, if pressed, would say that Menhir is also just a cuddly coworker!  But.  Who knows what the future may bring?  "Right.  So, whatever happens, I gotcha.  Okay?"  Conversational minefield: navigated!

"Mm-hm!"

It's not long before he's guided down to nearly zero.  He's maybe a little mundanely tired, but he's a big boy and if being a little tired was enough to stop him, he wouldn't have made it this far in life.  He wolfs down the meal Summer picked out for him (mushroom bacon/hamburger, well-done on account of the bacon mixed in with the ground beef and a side of loaded fries), forwards the invoice for Cricket's sake salmon and sashimi to Bill, and then approaches Cricket.

"Cricket?"  He's pretty sure this was about the volume level from last time, and now he's pretty sure that Cricket won't hate him forever.  It's much less stressful now that he has a script!

YAAAAAWN "Hello."

That's one big yawn.  "Hi.  Feeling ready for the last run?"

"Is my fish here yet?"