It was by no miracle that within a few hours of entering the dungeon that the first responder teams had already clear-cut a small portion of the forest and had the basics of a camp set up by nightfall.
The radio was going non-stop of chatter involving teams that have either secured their slice of the perimeter or were in the process of doing so, with one technician jotting down the messages with an energized fervor and relaying the information to his supervisor.
A few technicians had only just finished installing a specialized frame around the portal when the tall poles of flood lights lit up the area to a fake sense of day. Securing the portal was the most crucial step before rescue attempts could even be made.
"Sir, the portal is secured and stabilized." Shouted one technician towards the captain leading the operation. His apprentice next to him must have been new to the job since he was wrought with nervousness.
"Why do we have to put a frame around a portal on this side too? I thought they stabilized the portal back on our side." Asked the apprentice. His mentor ushered him over to help clean up the mess of tools and instruments they had used.
"Do you remember what they said about instant dungeon portals during your training?" This tech hadn't really planned on re-teaching the basics to their assigned neophyte; they couldn't help but think the college's graduation standards were getting slack.
"That entering a portal that is not stable will result in being teleported to random areas within a certain radius." Replied the student.
"Right. We have to stabilize the portal on our end in order to create a link between the crew going in with those special devices they were handing out. It allows us to all stay together, but the portal on this side is not yet stable, this means that its connection is randomized too."
The apprentice pondered for a few moments.
"So then if we tried to enter back the way we came with this side being unstable, we could end up in a random place?" The apprentice shuddered at the thought.
"Not just a random place on Earth, but before we developed the frames, people could end up randomly in a whole other dungeon instead of Earth." The tech zipped up the work bags, handing some to the apprentice who grabbed one and followed.
"But how do we know we are in the same dungeon as the rupture victims?" Rupture victim was the common name given to the people who get sucked into the sudden emergence of a new dungeon portal when it first opens.
"It's thanks to our engineers." The tech set down his bag again and began working on setting up another station.
"We discovered that each species has a unique energy pattern and so does each planet. We set up the frames to connect to that energy signature. Luckily, the portal itself also contains traces of that energy reading."
It was much easier to comprehend this fantastical reality as a type of computer system, at least, that is how Earth has managed to deal with it. One couldn't help but be curious if other sentient beings in the universe had also looked at this phenomenon in the same way.
"So the frame here is set up to connect directly back to the frame we set up on Earth?" It made sense if you looked at the portals as one-way roads. The frames essentially turned them into 2-way roads with road signs. The apprentice suddenly felt in awe of the engineer profession and entertained the thought of changing career paths some day.
"That's precisely it. Now, let's leave the idle chat and finish our work. There's still much to be done."
A rough topography printout of the area, created obviously in a hurry, was rolled out onto a table with a bunch of hunters surrounding it. The captain quickly marked a circle of their current location and then darted some lines outwards as though to draw borders of sections.
"Here's what we're looking at. This is about 3 kilometers in diameter, we will split it up into five sectors with each sector split into an inner sector and an outer sector. Our last reading showed 9 survivors. Our techs should have the latest readings for us momentarily now that the frames are synched."
One of the team leaders pointed at a rocky spot on the map. "My team went through the training for trad climbing and bouldering. We'll take this sector." You wouldn't think survivors would climb up cliff-faces but in these extreme survival situations, it's never good to make assumptions of a person's aptitudes.
The reason why these rescue teams have been known to have an outstanding track record is because they carry the attitude of 'no stone left unturned' in their rescue efforts. The captain had often invited the rescue teams from the Association to shadow their rescue methods in order to improve their ability to save people, but the directors had always just scoffed at him and his guild. I guess their pride is the reason why their force has gone on strike.
The Association itself was more like a guild, even though it doesn't get along with other guilds. They are pushing to become the governing entity in the entire dungeon industry, and in many ways, have managed to do so. The captain sighed, he knew that those unsavory bastards at the helm were not honest or moral people.