Back with Jim, Jay, and Susan; they have managed to take down another axebeak. This leaves three of them, one with a kobold. Those three take a lot more effort to kill than expected as the kobold does a decent job of running defense for them. Though in the end there is only so much defense a spear can do and Jim manages to pick the birds off one by one as the others keep the birds in place.

With the floor clear of enemies, the party regroups around Doctor and Sammy. Doctor looks up from his work for a second and shrugs, “Should have us both back together like new in no time. The biggest problem is going to be our equipment. I can’t exactly heal the back of my chest piece or the hole in her shield.”

Jim nods, “That could in theory be a problem.”

Jim looks to the others, “Do we have a patch big enough to deal with the giant tear on Doctors equipment? I know we have some smaller ones to fix up the occasional rip, but for some reason I don’t think we quite planned for something that big.”

Jay steps up and takes a closer look at the hole before shrugging, “We should be able to patch it up. While it does look big, only the first bit seems to be an actual hole. The rest is just a long rip. It looks like the spear pierced into the clothes and as it skimmed along his back the rest of the weapon was able to burst open his close as it continued onward.”

Jay pulls out a pack of needles and thread. “Just give me about half an hour with the outer armor and we should be ready to go.”

Doctor looks up, then back down at what he is doing, back up and then down again. Jay laughs, “Fair enough, let me help you get the armor off without disrupting your work.”

It takes a hot second but they manage to get the chest piece off of Doctor without disrupting his healing. From there it takes Jay two hand sized patches and a few arm length thongs of leather. That last bit almost interrupts the healing as Sammy giggles at the term thong, though Zach is quick to ruin the fun by explaining the term means a thin length of leather meant for binding stuff together. Sammy, of course knew that already as they had been dealing with this stuff for a good bit by now.

Of course, what they are actually waiting on isn’t for the equipment to be repaired, but rather Doctor to finish healing Sammy, which takes almost an hour to finish up. While the spear hadn’t pierced too far, it had done quite a doozy on her arm bones and Doctor had to spend a lot of time tracking down splinters. At the end he can’t help but shake his head, “You aren’t even in shock after that! I’ve seen similar injuries in the past and the only ones still conscious were cold and shivering from the pain.”

Sammy shrugs, “Eh, I just got really unlucky this time. If it had been to the other side of the shield, my gauntlet would have protected me instead of having all the bones near my elbow messed up. Besides, my job is to tank. I’ve invested a fair bit into my Con stat and I’m certain that thing helps prevent stuff like that.”

Jim shakes his head, “Don’t focus too much on it. At the very least, you should also go into Strength, with some on the side into Intelligence and Destiny.”

Sammy rolls her eyes, “Oh, don’t you worry. I realize this isn’t like those games where you can mono-stat your way to the top. I’m just putting any stat points into my Con stat. Everything else is spread out a lot more evenly. I just want to find out if the rumors of regeneration are true. I suspect it will be around 50 because our particular brand of human doesn’t do all that well at regrowing important bits.”

Jim shrugs, “As long as you’re keeping things even keeled. I don’t want you or any of our core people ending up useless because of unbalanced stats. You wouldn’t be a good tank if any noob curse caster could throw you into a deep sleep. The same goes for all of you. I don’t care what nonsense legends the tutorial guides might have soaked your head with. Sure, you can have a stat you focus on, but I better not hear of any of you attempting to put everything into that stat alone.”

From there, Jim and the rest lapse into silence before they decide to rest for another hour or so. While Sammy’s wound is all fixed up, that doesn’t mean the stress from it all has gone away.

While they are resting though, it isn’t like Doyle and Ally are doing nothing. They chat a bit over how the fight went with both of them agreeing that kobolds on axebeaks is quite the combination.

Though Ally points out one thing in particular, ‘Yeah, the axebeak in their natural habitat might hunt by doing a single powerful charge, but I think in a dungeon setting they would do a better job using tactics like they did after the kobolds ran out of spears to throw. Grouped up they can protect one another and while their attacks don’t have quite as much power behind it, they can better aim when not running full tilt.’

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Doyle easily agreed with that though took it further. ‘Besides that, I think both us and the birds themselves have gotten too caught up in their beaks. Sure, having a literal axe for a face does kind of push you in one direction. However, their claws might be just as effective. I didn’t really connect it before, but my planet has ostriches and emus, similarly big flightless birds and if I remember correctly part of their defense is those strong legs of theirs. I don’t see why it would work for the axebeaks.’

Ally agrees with that and they chat some more before she smirks and in a sly tone says, ‘I know you want to know.’

Doyle rolls his core, ‘Well if you know, why don’t you enlighten me?’

Ally laughs, ‘You want to know if someone actually does have to spread their stats out.’

Doyle nods and she continues, ‘Of course first off, it is for all intents and purposes impossible to not get any points into the other stats. Even if someone decides from the start, they only want to put points into Strength, the various early paths will likely end up getting a few points per level into everything. That’s just how the system we are under works.

‘After that, though? If they continue to focus only on Strength eventually their paths will follow suit. They will be vulnerable, most people who attempt this kind of thing will die or give up the path. Strength might provide physical defense but when something does hurt them they die easier and without the mental or soul stats, they will be particularly vulnerable to less physical forms of damage.

‘Maybe only a few tens of people who try that will survive to the end of their universe. Those that do though will be absolute powerhouses. It follows a similar curve to those who follow the same class path as far as they can, except stranger. You and in turn because of our connection I see the stat as “Strength”, but that isn’t the actual word.

‘So what is “Strength”? Ealy on a lot of beings see it as how strong they are and physically sturdy their body is. That isn’t always true, just look at how your description of the stat differs as a dungeon and it should be clear that all that is only the surface. In fact, sometimes those cultures where they have a different word used for it will have different effects from the stat to start.’

Doyle tilts to the sides, ‘Hm, that is weird. Going by roleplaying games and such most people are going to assume that Strength literally just means something like how much a person can lift. The fact it also calls out how sturdy the body is probably has thrown a few gamers for a loop as it is.’

Ally nods, ‘That is a surface level view of the stat and it isn’t wrong. The stat does determine how strong your body is. Except there are other beings who for the most part the stat does nothing for their ability to lift stuff, instead being purely how sturdy they are. Because the stats are like a giant sphere of water floating in space. Right now, you are on the surface and can only see so far.

‘From where you stand, which is closer to the second example because of being a dungeon core, you can see the sturdiness aspects of the stat and off in the distance you can spot a human standing but you can’t see past the horizon to the part of Strength that deals with lifting heavy things. That human, in turn, can see the edge of Strength’s sturdiness while mostly being in the part that focuses on exerting Strength with their bodies.

‘Of course, beyond both you and the human’s sight there are other beings who, despite having a physical body don’t even think of the stat as providing either of those things. Maybe it is a being made of literal mist and to them the stat means how cohesive their body is, not in a sturdy fashion, but rather just how easy it is for them to keep the water as mist and pull more water out of any pools of the stuff that might be around.

‘Now with that in mind and to extend the metaphor, adding points to the stat is living diving deeper into that giant sphere of water. Do you understand what that would mean?’

Doyle takes a moment to go over what was just said before figuring it out. ‘While that does mean they get better at the aspects of the stat they are close to, it also means they might end up coming into contact with other aspects as the deeper they get, the closer they would be to them. My guess is that the human regeneration thing is an example of that.

‘It was just out of sight on the surface, but going down a little bit puts humans in contact with the concept. Or maybe, maybe it wasn’t out of sight. Rather, it was next to them and they could see it, but the concept wasn’t close enough to heavily affect them. Hmm, that does sound better now that I think about it. After all, while humans can’t regrow limbs, we can regrow some parts of our body.’

Ally nods, ‘And of course the sphere of water thing is just a very leaky abstraction, but it is enough to get you thinking in the right direction. Now consider this: there is a limit on how physically strong a person can get, yet Strength can break that limit. What do you think that represents? And I’ll head it off at the pass, no, it doesn’t mean they start using mana or qi to start moving things.’

Doyle hadn’t been considering that though hearing the last part does make him more confident in his idea. ‘So I was throwing the word “concept” around a lot in my last explanation. I’ve read a few cultivation novels in my time and I’m going to base my guess on stuff from there.

‘There is a limit on how tough a human’s flesh and blood body can get. However, after a certain point, it is being held together through the concept of Strength itself. There is no magic or physical reason for it, they are simply strong like that.’

Ally smiles, ‘Got it in one! Now, Jim down there is rightfully worrying about things like curses and what not. I would never suggest a team player try to go mono-stat. However, if Strength eventually exceeds the physical, what does that say?’

Doyle tilts back, ‘That its defense isn’t limited to the physical.’

Ally nods, ‘With a high enough Strength you don’t need other stats because Strength becomes everything. I can’t even properly explain it because I don’t understand it fully myself and likely only those on the path do.’