D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

--- Hunter ---

Hunter sucked in a deeper breath. "Ok, can you elaborate on the soul thing a bit?"

"I thought this was covered in classes?" mentioned Meg.

"Nothing more then exceptionally lightly. Even digging carefully through my information on souls I find that nothing is ringing bells. All I know is that you are correct, but only in that I have secondary sources collaborating that point, I have done no research myself and it was never a major topic in class," explained Hunter.

"Right… um… even what I know isn't super detailed," admitted Meg as she tried to figure out how best to explain everything to get Hunter looking at her in the best light. "Well, first off… if you sleep too long your soul starts to leave your body. Even if your body is fine if it's never actually doing anything eventually the soul starts to drift away for lack of better terminology.

"Certain species have inbuilt spiritual organs to help manage the issue, and even then a completely normal goblin, one of those that barely live twenty years can still manage around a century in stasis without issues. It's proportional to biological lifespan usually, somewhere between five and ten times standard lifespan without special consideration.

There are some species that deal with it really badly, and others that deal with it really well such as dragons and other species that naturally hibernate for a long time.

"If you know about that you can have technology help deal with the side effects and further extend cryo-sleep or even more natural sleep… but the fundamental issue is that when the soul stops being properly stimulated… something happens. I didn't go deep into the medical records. Most of this information was for an extra credit report I was voluntold to do.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

So as I said be aware this isn't the most up to date or accurate information…

"But I couldn't find confirmation regarding why the issue occurs. It is unclear if the soul decides the body can't be alive anymore and 'gives up' trying to wake itself up, or if it's something closer to dying where the soul starts to slowly 'decay' in that it loses that outer shell with memories and stuff. From there, with the outside falling apart, the anchor come lose and the soul just… leaves,"

"Can't you double check things like that with your power?" asked Hunter.

"Nooot at the moment? I have no proper way of seeing, detecting, or really interacting with souls in a useful manner for something like this. I mean, I can tell if someone's soul is weakening with that power… but detecting weakness in the soul itself is beyond me for the moment. I am unsure if that's because I lack perception or if it's because it's a hard limit and I need to rank up.

Just as an example, I couldn't see social weaknesses until Rank 2 and that still took training to work out," explained Meg.

Hunter nodded, "Alright can you at least tell me how many of these pods are still viable?" Experience new stories on empire

Meg nodded as she looked them all over. Ben and Chasen, and even Corela had really undersold just how many people were packed into these things. It was clear the current low population wasn't just due to the 'war' with the robots but from people willing freezing themselves away.

Most of them likely jumped in right at the beginning, and perhaps in the decades that followed before the real issues popped up.

"So, there's not much wrong with the technology in most of these pods. I'd say if you were looking to salvage them for something around ninety percent of them are in just shy of perfect condition. All you need to do is remove the dead bodies," said Meg seriously.

Hunter let out a sigh, knowing she should've seen this coming. "What I was actually attempting to ask was how many people here have a chance to live?"

"Oh, yeah not that many at all. Corela is actually the healthiest one here. Despite being woken up the most… or maybe because of it? Unclear but her soul has definitely handled it the best. Most of the ones labelled 'not safe to open' yeah they're all basically dead. Their bodies are working… but no soul.

Guess the people making these things didn't know how to take that into account.

"Of the rest of them… hmm… I want to say… yeah counting Corela you've got maybe ten people here that might live, but four of them have something wrong with them. Injury, disease, whatever. Those four clearly went in to survive their issues and wait for better help. Not sure if that little bit of extra stimulation has helped their soul stay put or not. The other five? Little bit iffier surprisingly.

"Like, that one guy there?" Meg pointed to a guy that was missing a large chunk of his stomach. The right side had clearly been blasted away by a laser cauterising the wound in the process. "I'd actually say he has good chances of waking up. He'd probably die not long afterwards from medical complications but a proper healer and he'd be fine. Kamiko… might be able to do it? I dunno.

"Comparatively that girl there?" Meg pointed to a rather young looking woman, if a touch on the thin side if you ignored her rather large behind. "She's technically the youngest and healthiest person that's still 'viable' in these things but if we took her out? I'd give it even odds that she just collapses on the spot and dies,"

"Is it not better to wake her up then? You mentioned that staying in these things long term is the issue," said Hunter.

"Right, and that's true… but you have to wake them up properly. It's why I said it was unclear if Corela waking up every now and then is helping or not. It's like… it's like if I slapped you awake. You'd probably try to cut off my arm for it, and that's fair… but in this case you're super injured and moving too much could cause your arms to shatter into a million pieces or something.

"This tech… while designed for exceptionally long term storage never accounted for the soul issues. Likely because they didn't actually have the time to test them. If they used time magic at all to help simulate the effects then that might be why because it doesn't have quite the same effect on the soul. Or maybe these pods are already doing better then designed I dunno.

"Point is, there is a right way to wake these people up to maximise their chance of living… and I have no idea what that is. I know it exists, but I distinctly remember myself complaining that it was never going to come up in real life and that I didn't want to be a doctor.

It was right at the part where I'd decided I'd put too much time into researching the topic when I could definitely get away with handing in what I had… suppose that's egg on my face," admitted Meg with a shrug, trying to appear casual but her focused gaze never quite leaving Hunter's face even as Meg tried to look away was telling…

For someone with better social skills. Hunter of course noticed the continued gaze but she'd spent too much time around Meg, and even other clan members of the more paranoid variety to mentally flag it as anything other than 'expected' so Meg seemed pretty casual to her in that moment.

"I believe you made a fair assessment. I did not even know that such classes existed, nor did I know that it would come up. Performing the correct technique may be time consuming and learning how to do so properly would likely take a considerable amount of time. Though… what was the class even about that this sort of thing would be part of your assessments?" stated Hunter.

Meg beamed. Bright and wide a genuine smile and receiving such a weak comment from Hunter… but Hunter's words had been completely genuine with not a single annoyed glance, backhanded compliment, or touch of disappointment in her tone. If anything, Meg thought she may perhaps detect a hint of pride there,"

"It was one of the classes for hunting people through space. It came up in the 'proper procedure for taking captives alive when they've been in cryo-sleep' and it mostly just boils down to… 'leave them in the cryopod and make it someone else's problem' if I'm being honest.

Even without the soul issues long term storage of living people using technology is less then ideal… and while magic does do it better it has its own issues for things long term. It's actually much safer to… 'push' someone forward in time then it is to use long term stasis which is a completely separate issue,"

Hunter nodded as if that completely made sense, and to her it did. "Of course they are. I didn't take many of the advanced tech courses but I did take a few of the advanced magical ones and I know that much,"