Descend- Coming Together

by David Burke

  Healers were all too rare here as was typical of his previous gaming experience, just with more serious consequences. That aside though her attitude was getting on his nerves. He didn’t really care how cute she was and normally she had a very bubbly personality but today she seemed irritated. On second thought maybe she was just nervous. That could be it.

  Jessie added, “There is also crowd control. That is the person who deals with any additional creatures and helps to control the environment. With practice Kenzie’s walls could help serve that purpose but there is also my ability to control animals. I can make one animal fight for us against other animals.”

  Jay whistled. “That so would have come in handy in the first couple dungeon runs. What else can you do?”

  “Well, you know I can take on the traits of creatures, transforming parts of all of my body to utilize those traits. Can be claws and fangs, or armored scales, or pretty much anything that I can envision. Truthfully, I’m still figuring it all out. I also have heightened senses of smell and hearing all the time,” Jessie answered while positively beaming at the attention.

  “Oops, sorry. I didn’t have a chance to shower this morning. Hope it isn’t too rough on your nose,” Jay said.

  Jessie chuckled. “Nope but I can smell what else you’ve been up to or should I say into.”

  Jay blushed a bit before shrugging. He was beginning to decide there was nothing to be ashamed of. He cared about the girls and they cared about him. If this was the end of the world, then he wasn’t gonna go down with regrets.

  “So thanks for the praise, but why aren’t you gonna be the tank? There is no way that I am as tough as you are.”

  “True but if I do all the tanking, then none of you will get any practice because it will be over too quickly. Instead I am going to practice some of my other skills, but don’t worry. If it ever gets too dangerous I will step in.”

  Then Jay looked at Mia. She was the exact opposite of Kenzie in appearance but at least normally shared her pleasant personality. Both could be snippy at times as he had seen on the council but now she looked terrified. It gave him a second to take in her long legs, legs that went on for miles. He couldn’t help but wonder for a second how those would be wrapped around him. He had to shake his head to clear it, before asking her what she could do.

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than she looked like she was going to cry. It was an odd look on her classically beautiful face. She had so much grace and poise that with her height, face, and figure he doubted she had ever been the odd person out in any social situation back on Earth. That wasn’t stopping her from breaking down here, which was something Jay was poorly prepared to handle.

  He walked over to her and put his arm around her. “It’s okay. You aren’t being tested now. We are just learning about each other and trying to figure out how we can best work together.”

  She shuddered against him, seeming to struggle to speak. When the words came out, he understood her concerns. “You won’t want me. Everyone else has such cool abilities, but I didn’t get anything. I’m worthless.”

  “It can’t be that bad and I know you have already been working hard on the original council to help everyone.” When that didn’t seem to encourage her Jay said, “Why don’t you show me your Status and we can work out together how to use it.”

  She hesitated before eventually saying, “Share Status.”

  F49381

  Level: 2

  Awareness: 6

  Empathetic Bond: 1 - 0%

  Expanded Mind: 1 - 34%

  Tactical Probability: 1 - 18%

  Durability: 2

  Enhanced Flexibility: 2 - 99%

  Kinesis: 1

  Shared Potential: 1 - 0%

  Metabolism: 1

  Borrowed Adaptation: 1 - 0%

  Formation: 1

  PSI Pts: 80 Stamina: 30

  Shop Credits: 5

  Reading her sheet made it easier for him to understand how her nerves seemed so frayed. She was almost out of credits and had only managed to gain one level while almost all the other girls had managed to reach at least level three and many like Kenzie had reached level four. Beyond that her skills seemed vaguer than many others he had seen. Well except for the Enhanced Flexibility but it looked like she had maxed that one out until she leveled again or otherwise gained a point in Durability. She was also the only person he had ever seen without at least one skill in every category.

  “So have you experimented trying to figure out how to use your abilities?”

  “Of course, but other than lots of stretching I haven’t been able to figure out a way to activate any of the skills,” she replied.

  “To be fair, Jasmine keeps her running all over so she has had less time than the rest of us to do things,” Kenzie said.

  “Well I can’t promise you a spot on Team Jay but I can promise that we will help you work through this. I don’t believe for one minute that your skills are worthless.” Her frown lessened as he spoke but she was clearly still sad. So he switched gears for a minute to let her process. Turning to Jessie he asked, “Do you need weapons, armor or anything else?”

  The pretty girl with her short, blue hair smiled and said, “Nope, I’ve got a dagger already and my skills are my armor and weapons most of the time, anyway.”

  “What about any personal goods?”

  “If I get a spot on the team, then I will earn all those things myself,” Jessie said with a coy smile. She turned to walk away and ran her nails lightly across her chest as she said, “Kenzie, come wait with me at the top of the ziggurat. Let Jay finish up with Mia.”

  Jay couldn’t help but get a silly grin on his face as he watched the two petite girls walk away, with Jessie doing her best to work it.

  He told himself to focus and took a deep breath before shrugging it off. Then said to Mia, “So what sort of gear do you need?”

  “I just don’t know. I’m afraid I will get in your way.”

  “Let me worry about that. We will pick at least one of your skills and work on it. What would you like to try first?” Jay asked.

  “Um…” she said and Jay immediately wanted to avoid an experience like when he had asked a date where she wanted to go for dinner.

  “How about we try your kinesis skill? Those tend to be fairly straightforward and easy to you. So you have something called Shared Potential. Have you tried using it before?”

  “No, I think I need someone else to use it with.”

  “Do you know how to apply PSI to activate a skill?” Jay asked.

  “I remember the lesson that you gave everyone, and I have tried it but all that happens is I get this sense that a little hollow tube is coming out of the center of my head and looking for something to attach to.”

  Jay laughed and said, “Oh that sounds kinda creepy.” He almost immediately regretted it when her shoulder slumped and she looked like she was going to cry again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh at you. The image was just a little weird.”

  Looking at the ground, Mia replied, “It’s not like a real tube comes out of my head, it just how the power feels.”

  “Okay, well you can try it with me if you want.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked hesitantly.

  He reached out and put his hand on her arm in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. “Don’t worry you can’t hurt me and I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it.” She didn’t need to know that he activated his Hardened Body skill just in case.

  She reached out and put her hands on his chest. He wasn’t sure if that was necessary for the skill but it seemed to relax her. Suddenly, Jay felt a tickling at the core in the center of his chest.

  “The tube is going to your chest, do you feel anything?” she asked.

  “I can’t see any tube but I feel a tickling at my stamina core.”

  “Does it hurt?” she asked nervously.

  Jay smiled at her as he said, “Not at all, it’s actually sorta pleasant. Tr
y to activate it to the second level.”

  Suddenly her eyes got really wide, like someone had just pinched her ass. “Oh my god, it’s so big. How are you this strong?”

  Jay felt an increased bit of pressure but it didn’t feel wrong or harmful, just like a bit of suction. Then there was a rush of energy back into him. It wasn’t significant, but he looked at his status sheet to confirm his assumption. Sure enough he found that he had 15 Stamina over his cap and his Durability had increased by one. The notification explained it all.

  F49381 has triggered the Shared Potential Ability with you.

  Stat targeted: Durability Shared %: 50

  M1789 gains temporary Durability: +1 and Stamina: +15

  F49381 gains Durability: +12 and Stamina: +225

  When he opened his eyes, he saw her staring at him. “How do you have this much power? You barely got anything from me but I feel like I’m as sturdy as a brick wall now,” Mia asked.

  “You are what, level two now. I am level 16 and have gained a ton of power along the way. Just think though, if we could get you some more skills what you could do with that extra Durability. I wonder how long it lasts.”

  “Only a couple more minutes based on the rate that it is draining my PSI,” she answered.

  “What would be cool would be if you could do it for more than one stat or more than one person. This definitely has to be tested more, but right now we need to join the others. Would you feel better with a weapon and some armor or any basics?”

  “No I agree with Jessie about that, but I wouldn’t mind if you got me some leather armor and a spear. I’m gangly enough that I can probably keep something away with a spear long enough for you to finish it off.”

  Jay gave her an appraising look. “Gangly is not a word that comes to mind to describe you at all. You are beautiful and don’t let all the stress we have been going through convince you of anything else. With your height, I sorta figured you were a model back home.”

  She blushed but gave him a big smile as he went to the terminal and bought her armor. Then he took the new spear off his back and handed it along with the armor to Mia. “This is one of the new higher-quality spears. I haven’t had that much chance to use it because I still like the one the girls made for me.”

  Mia said, “Thanks for the armor and thanks for letting me use your spear.”

  At that moment the 5th grader in Jay burst out as he chuckled.

  Mia blushed again, which he was finding strangely endearing given her tall model-like beauty. “Oh I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that as a come on.”

  Jay shrugged and said, “I know. Ignore me. Amelia would just call me a bonehead and remind you how sometimes I think like I’m still in middle school.”

  After that, he herded her to the top of the ziggurat where the other two were waiting, not so patiently. He turned his back to allow her to change and then they followed him into the first floor of the dungeon.

  Chapter 13- Rookies

  The next two hours were a little rough on Jay. He thought he had appreciated the feeling of teamwork that he got with Amelia, Huong, and Meikiyo, but now he knew that he hadn’t appreciated it enough. He missed the way that they worked together so well. It had gotten to the point where it was almost easy to take it for granted.

  “Never again,” he swore to himself. These girls had real potential but couldn’t seem to get out of their own way. Jessie was fierce, and that wasn’t just a turn of phrase. When she went full beast mode, she was easily a match for a single lizat.

  She was also full-on reckless and not only did Kenzie have to heal her more than once, Jay also had to step in to save her. The first time she disregarded his warning that there were three lizats. She could only see one and so leapt at it, eager to prove her worth.

  At least it gave Jay a chance to practice his spinning psionic construct blades. He was starting to get good at making them smaller and even had come up with a way to form a fixed center point around which the rest of the blade spun. This made accelerating them into a buzz saw much easier.

  Practicing his Psionic formations was one of the main skills that he worked on while babysitting the rookies as he started to call them. He made blades of varying lengths and then realized that he was limiting himself again and so started trying to work the constructs into other shapes.

  He managed whips and shields as well as even walls. The spinning blade was a relatively simple design in theory but actually harder to form than it seemed at first as it was essentially one formation wrapped around another. Once he had the hang of it though he felt confident that he would be able to start making more complex moving parts, maybe even some type of gun in the future.

  Beyond that he spent most of his effort in practicing his Precognition. It was a particularly taxing skill and hard to always quantify how he used it. During battle it was clearly useful but he couldn’t help but wonder if it had other uses. He used the new Assessment skill as much as possible but found that at the lower level it only gave very limited information about the creatures and plants that he scanned.

  Using his telepathy, however, was distinctly fun. The girls were all shocked the first time that he called out to them. He finally explained after making them each jump a couple of times. None of them found it as funny as he did but even the aggressive Jessie let it go.

  This only encouraged him and after the first hour he hadn’t spoken verbally once. Instead he relied upon mental communication. This turned out to be quite handy, and he wondered why he hadn’t insisted on doing this more with the main team.

  Of course throughout the time that he was working on these skills he kept stretching himself by constantly practicing at least one of his physical abilities at the same time. He would move with sudden bursts of speed or smash a tree with an empowered punch. That and using his Life Sense to make sure that they didn’t run into one of the other groups that was clearing the dungeon along with them.

  Kenzie for her part was little better than Jessie and far more annoying to him. He couldn’t help but call her Frosty in his mind. She was always trying to get one up on the other two and point it out to Jay. She obviously wanted his attention and flirted shamelessly to get it.

  The top two buttons on her blouse had mysteriously come undone. She even managed to wear the leather armor that Jay had gotten her so loosely that he didn’t see how it would provide any benefit. Of course, who was he to complain if she wanted to show off some cleavage?

  When she was called on it by Jessie, she claimed that she was hot. Never mind that she quite literally had ice powers, she still claimed heat as a reason for her wardrobe malfunction.

  Mia was as quiet and bashful as Jessie and Kenzie were reckless and outgoing. If it weren’t for the fact that she was constantly maintaining the Shared Potential between the two of them he could almost have forgotten she was there. In reality she wasn’t needed, but Jay couldn’t shake the sense that her abilities could be far more useful than she thought.

  Whenever he sent a telepathic message to check on her, she would tell him that she was great. Apparently, she liked the way that she felt stronger from having the extra durability. He had to coax her to try on other stats but was disappointed when she could only seem to forge the connection to either Durability or Metabolism and not any of the more mental stats, at least not yet.

  After the two hours, Jay called for a break. “That’s enough. Let’s all sit down and have a snack. We don’t want to kill all the creatures so the others don’t have any fun,” he projected telepathically to all of them at once.

  “That’s fine for when we are fighting, but would you mind actually speaking with your voice, now that we are resting?” Jessie asked.

  “Yeah, I kinda like the sound of your voice,” Kenzie said as she tried to scoot closer to him in the circle they were all sitting in.

  “Fine,” he said out loud, “but I want us to help Mia work on something.” The other two girls nodded while Mia got
pale and gulped nervously.

  “It will be fine,” Jay assured her. “What I want you to do is try to form a Shared Potential with all three of us at the same time. I know it will be harder, but you need to push yourself if you are going to grow.”

  While Mia focused and gathered herself, Jay explained to the others what she was attempting. They were a bit unsure at first but accepted his word that it wouldn’t hurt them. Jay knew it was working when both of their eyes bulged wide and he felt more energy flow into him.

  The notification that he got showed that he got a single point of Durability and 15 stamina from each of them and that they all got an enhancement equal to 50% of his scores. They were thrilled, and it was cool to Jay that her ability could do exactly what it said. It shared a portion of each of their potential without actually taking anything from the one who was sharing.