"She could've just asked politely, didn't need to try to split my head in two."

"She's not very smart."

"Anyway I think we're done here? Divvy up loot and go? I'm usually a completionist but I gotta tell you I am not in the mood to try to look for any other rooms we might've missed, loot be damned."

"With you there. Let's haul everything out and figure out how to split it outside, I don't like being hunched over a pile of gold coins in a swamp when I could be doing it in a fairy garden, yanno?"

"Mood. Let's go."

Chris leads the way, since even though there are not gonna be any monsters she's still the tank.

"You think you got a personal after all? Like a psychic barrier?"

"Maybe! It would have been pretty hidey but I guess I cannot think of a time when I definitively ought to have noticed such a thing."

"You know, I bet there's a ton of people with personals like that who just never even find out. Like if someone's not an adventurer and has that personal how would they even tell?"

"There could be some but I would bet not a ton - no reason to expect it to be concentrated outside of the would-be adventurer population and you don't hear about something like this every day."

"I guess not but there's a lot more people who aren't adventurers than people who are."

"Psychic defense is kind of lame as a personal, though. ...uh, no offense."

"Woulda really liked it just now," Chris mumbles.

"...yeah, better than having nothing. But, I don't know, there's just not really enough psychic dungeons that it's super useful like your thing is."

"Hey, I can get on a plane like everybody else and go sweep 'em."

"If that sounds like your idea of a good time I'm not gonna rain on your parade," he says, grinning.

"It'll cut into my research hours but think of the MP."

"Godspeed."

They divide their spoils, collecting anything they left behind on the way due to being too annoying to carry while they were still actively clearing the dungeon, and report on their findings. The high-power soldier who takes their report agrees with Tom's assessment that it's likely the dungeon will no longer have these psychic effects once it's done reconfiguring itself and reopens but this is good information. They exchange contact information, since that's always good to do at least when you don't hate your random party members, and return to their respective homes.

She posts her pictures. She comes up with a spell set that she might want if she walks into a psychic dungeon that is suddenly more scared of her than she is of it.

She inquires into who's managing entry into the "Protean" Dungeon? They think it's psychic, right?

The Protean Dungeon is one of the oldest dungeons on record, and it's sufficiently unlike other dungeons in many aspects that the more narratively-minded people around sometimes speculate that it might be the first, and perhaps even something like other dungeons' "progenitor", if that's something that makes sense. It was not the first dungeon found, because it's in the middle of the Australian Outback so that took a bit, but it's extremely big, extremely powerful, and, most importantly, it changes.

Now, every dungeon does to some extent, of course. Right after it's cleared, every dungeon closes for a bit, and the next time people go in it's different than last time. Sometimes it's minor, a moved hallway, an extra room, slightly different and more powerful monsters, and other times it can even include entirely new levels and bosses. But the Protean Dungeon changes more, much much more, than any other dungeon does, and much more quickly. A regular dungeon whose first level is themed around wetlands like the one Elisabel just visited would very rarely change that theme; the Protean Dungeon's first level has seen such variations as deserts, jungles, ancient temples, ruins, office buildings, labyrinths, pyramids, tombs, graveyards, the surface of the Moon, mazes of impossible geometry, underwater caves, post-apocalyptic cities, volcano lairs, and much more. Its monsters are just as varied, naturally, always keeping in theme with the dungeon itself.

Furthermore, no one has actually ever beat it. A few parties have managed to explore past the first level, and some even past the second, but no one has defeated any iteration of its third level's boss, and no one has much reason to expect the third is the last. Trips into it are proper camping trips, lasting multiple days and requiring a lot of preparation.

And no one understands how.

People's best understanding of dungeons is that they need to spend mana, or at least something like mana, just as much as humans do. They must have access to different kinds of magic and maybe different resources, seeing as there is no known spell to create monsters or pocket dimensions, but it does seem like there is some cost to changing, and some way the dungeons have of acquiring or regenerating those resources. Statistically, dungeons that change their layout too much (such as by changing the theme of a level) tend to change into a less powerful alternative before powering up again; new floors are almost always easier and smaller than existing ones when they first appear; and the biggest changes occur whenever people die inside, suggesting that they "consume" those they kill, somehow. By all accounts, the Protean Dungeon is breaking the scales set by every other dungeon on record.

Now the thing about psychic powers is that, if the psychic attacker is sufficiently more powerful or skilled than the psychic defender, the defender can't even notice the attack at all. As the difference in power between attacker and defender shrinks, it's possible for the defender to notice the attack even if they can't stop it or dodge it. And a bit over two months ago, a powerful adventurer party that went into the Protean Dungeon included a psychic who was powerful enough in its formation, and they noticed something. Only for a moment, and then the feeling was gone, but they're adamant that that dungeon was doing something psychic to them.

Now people have a guess about how exactly it is that the Protean Dungeon may be accomplishing the feat of looking different every time. If that's how it does it, it's terrifying. That's a degree of psychic ability and control no human and certainly no other dungeon currently has.

So, yeah, some people think the Protean Dungeon might be psychic, although no other adventurer has managed to detect that effect again.

That said... one big difference between personal powers and powers you can acquire somehow else is that personal powers are absolute, in one way or another. Superstrength that is acquired through magic can be sapped or cursed, but Chris's superstrength is probably immune to any strength-reducing effects. Further improvements to it may be affected, but the minimum amount of strength Chris will have will always be capped by her personal power. And it's not out of the question that Elisabel, if she does have a psychic barrier personal, might just categorically nope whatever effect that one psychic felt, if it was real.

But regardless of anything it's still an incredibly high-level dungeon, and Elisabel is not, herself, a super experienced adventurer, so the people in charge are wondering why exactly it is that she's applying.

She doesn't really expect to clear it if it turns out to be at all scary to her.

She would kind of really like to just - stick her head in, though. It can't stop her from going out. Dungeons can't do that. She could just tag along with whoever's going next, and bail and visit her dad instead if her hunch is actually nothing.

So she wants to just... walk in with another party and... do what, exactly?

Check if it's mostly doing psychic stuff, by seeing if it can't do it to her! ...it's possible she should check another psychic dungeon first but they're rare and this is actually the one she can get to in the least travel time if you factor in getting a visa.

Would she be willing to check against a psychic human first, just so they don't waste any time? The psychic who found the effect two months ago would actually be pretty willing to work with her, it turns out, since that day they've been working on their stuff and they visited Protean once more and didn't feel the ping anymore and if you read between the lines this is slightly driving them nuts and they'd love to have some closure.