Jamie Takes It Hard – Chapter 119

The spear dude and the other martial arts guy both stood there stunned that someone in the group had actually died. The lady is taking it better as she had a more realistic view of their abilities from the outset. But it is Mr. Stansible who is taking it the best. While it had changed in his later years, for the first decade of his time as a judge, the death penalty was still very much a thing. He might have never needed to judge such a case, but he had been ready for it. Seeing one of his own fall might be traumatic, but after the horrors that were the early days after the system came and his mental preparedness he was able to keep a handle on himself.

Jamie on the other hand is wrecked. He didn’t actively peek into his teammates minds, but he kept a light touch on them like a doctor checking a pulse. To feel a mind just blink out, to know the exact moment someone dies and viscerally feel it? Jamie had known before Mr. Stansible had finished his spell that the guy was dead, but he couldn’t react, couldn’t do anything.

Mr. Stansible takes a couple steps back from the group before taking a couple of deep breaths. “Okay, that was a horrible thing to happen. I am calling an end to our delve because there is no way we could bring the body with us and I am not letting the dungeon take it. The two of you can carry him and the rest of us will make sure nothing attacks.”

With that the party starts to move again, even Jamie is broken out of his breakdown. However, Mr. Stansible can see this is only temporary. Still, it is enough to get them out of the dungeon and back to their group. Not much else is said beyond handing over the skill book on bone carving.

As their group sails away, Ace relaxes. “Well, good thing they didn’t blame us for the death. That would have been awkward. Though I guess there is a story to hear. Susan, how did their dive go and why did someone end up dead? I didn’t consider them on our level, but they weren’t weak by any means.”

Susan steps out of the crowd laughing, “Oh boy. That guy’s death is his own damn fault and the result of cosmic irony. Anyway, they actually did better than us because of the guy with a hat. That hat is used to cover a horn growing out of his head, because apparently his psionic powers were too great to stay locked up in his skull. Thought that does make me want to find some of my old associates because I would be able to laugh at some of them for their new headgear.”

“But yeah, he had the ability to snoop on surface thoughts though us founders have some kind of protection against it. In the dungeon they used it to pinpoint almost all the monsters. His powers also let him paralyse a single target, so of course they took out the leaders first. That is part of why they did so much better. They hadn’t fought any of the monsters without taking out the leader, so I don’t think they noticed. Once the leader of a group is dead, the rest of the monsters lose some of their power and don’t work together as well.”

“Now maybe you noticed that I said almost there when referring to how many monsters he could detect. The key there is for him to detect something it needs a mind and guess what those vine monsters don’t have? The dead idiot scoffed at the idea and assumed a monster needs a mind.”

“Inevitably, they reached the third floor and ran into one of them with no preparation. He literally stuck his head through a doorway to check the next room. A vine got him right around the neck. While it wasn’t able to kill him right away, with that grip it soon snapped the fools neck. There were so many ways he could have avoided it. If he had taken a peak lower down so his head wasn’t high enough for the vine to grab. Or the spear guy could have waved that around in the room first to test for any reactions. And of course the simplest of all, just walked into the room. The vines aren’t all that deadly if you can protect your neck, but he offered it up to the thing on a silver platter.”

Ace groans, “Oh gods and goddess, there are going to be so many deaths once people start showing up. I guess we should go talk about what needs to be done now, in the dungeon of course because apparently psychics are a thing. Though before I forget, Jimmy, here’s the bone carving book.” Then everyone either went back to their jobs or gathered in the dungeon’s entrance hall.

Speaking of the dungeon, in the core room Ally is laughing hysterically. “Oh my, that was so stupid. He was asking for it and even worse, those assassin vines aren’t even too strong. Should have rushed their con stat for that sweet regen if you’re going to be so dumb.”

Doyle lets her finish laughing before he can ask, ‘So what is up with the regen? I didn’t think much of it when you first told me, but now I have regen potions.’

Ally wipes a tear from her eye, ‘Whew, anyway, yeah, the regen a human gets when their con score is in the lower twenties isn’t regen regen. They won’t be growing back an arm, well most of them won’t be. Rather it more matches the idea you see in some of your world’s rpgs where someone doesn’t die the second they are out of hit points. That whole going to a negative number actually comes from this.’

‘Mind you, some people awaken more powerful versions because of mixed bloodlines or special conditions, which are confusingly named constitutions. So some people can passively regrow limbs. It is just that most people only get enough regen so when in similar situations they will still be alive enough to save. Some actually theorize it has more do with a person’s will to live than any actual regeneration, but that is what shows up on the status panel, so that is what I’m calling it.’

Doyle nods, ‘Knowing that, I would definitely want at least a single point of growth in constitution if I were still human.’

Ally snorts, ‘You and everyone else. The thing I’m more interested in is the failed psionic. How does your world even have someone like that already?’

Doyle tilts to the side, ‘Mostly certain we’ve always had psionics around. While not exactly mainstream, I actually did a paper on for college once. There has never really been any massive amount of proof for it, but several studies were done with statistically significant results. Also you said failed? He seems to be quite good at using his abilities to me. Really stomped the dungeon with his ability to pinpoint all the monsters.’

Ally rolls her eyes, ‘That is just because you haven’t seen what higher grade psychics can do. The horn itself is proof he is a failure. A proper psychic can compress and contain their powers within their body. Because the guy let it burst out and form a horn, his growth is linked to the growth of the horn. This not only leads to simple physical limits on his powers, but also a glaring weakness. You chop the horn off and he loses a large part of his power until it grows back.’

‘As for psionics existing on this world before the system? That is stupid rare. While people tend to gain psionic powers with higher stats, even if it ends up being something as simple as the classic touch TK that allows them to lift things without breaking them. They need either high stats or a rare constitution. For your world to already have them means something here is fostering the growth of psionic powers. Now that people can tap into all the supernatural energies this will only supercharge the emergence of psionic powers.’

‘Luckily for us not many people gain the ability to cheese our dungeon like that guy did. In fact, some places don’t even bother calling them psionic powers and instead just call them talents. Because at a low grade that is what they basically are. One person might gain a passive knowledge of how a piece of wood twists and turns on the inside and can carve it better than anyone else. Another person will be able to tell you what the weather will be like tomorrow with more accuracy than a divination spell.’

‘You can test for powers like that, but at the same time most don’t bother. A farmer whose family has been farmers for generations doesn’t need to know they have a talent for farming. They know it in their bones. Plus people like that tend to be easy to pick out, anyway. Just look for the people who are way too satisfied with their work. While following your dreams or doing something you’re good at is satisfying. A talent goes beyond just a physical drip of chemicals telling you that you did a good job.’

Doyle nods, ‘Then there are powers like that guy had. Which you also don’t need to test for because they are pretty darn obvious. Suddenly able to hear the thought of others? Guess you’re telepathic now.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Still, I don’t expect to see too many of even the low grade powers around here just yet. Even if your world for some reason nurtures talents, the system will have spread them out like they did everyone else. The fact we saw only a single person with a horn in their group means that while they aren’t rare, they are not common. Otherwise more would come along with them to try to spy on the settlement.’

Doyle sighs, ‘I’m not going to complain. While the concept of psionic powers always fascinated me. I did write an entire paper on them after all. But as a dungeon core, it also scares me that he was able to basically walk through my dungeon.’

Ally laughs, ‘You don’t have to worry about that too much. Even just on the third floor, your walls are starting to block their powers. With each new floor it becomes harder and harder for someone to just come in and be able to tell where everything is or even worse, kill it all at a distance. Of course, more powerful psychics will be able to still do their thing, but the same is true for any of the more powerful abilities out there.’

‘About the only thing sacrosanct in a dungeon is the separation between floors. Even for the dungeons where the floors aren’t literally in their own dimension this is true. Something about the difference between floors being a sheer point in reality.’

Doyle nods, ‘Fair enough. Now, before I forget to bring this up, that guy died, and I got a nice rush of power from it. Really nice boost to my finances and he wasn’t really all that powerful. However, I can totally see someone kicking the bucket and me not having enough space in my pool for all the power. What happens and is there a way to store it for a hot second so I might be able to put it to good use.’

Ally shrugs again, ‘Give yourself a couple more floors and a more active community of delvers and you won’t run into the problem easily. As for storing it? That is both easy and a bit lossy. You can after all create stuff on the floors without delvers on them. With that in mind, all you have to do is find some object with a cheap enough cost to spawn fully formed and that you don’t lose too much when you subsequently deconstruct it. I can’t tell you what to use for it though as it is different for each person. Who knows, maybe with your hang up over goats you will find that small cubes of goat horn work. Of course nothing is perfect, so don’t expect to be saving too much by doing this.’

Akhier

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