Dungeon’s Path

Ace coughs awkwardly, “Well, I don’t intend it as...

“Yeah, it is basically a form of ironically non-magical mind control. Magic just makes it a lot easier to reinforce things since it can detect intent and not just actions. Especially since people won’t know it is happening. I know there is a better word for this besides mind control as it isn’t quite that far, seeing as the system is okay with it.”

Jack shakes his head, “The fact this sort of training doesn’t count as mind control as far as the system’s restrictions are concerned is a bit worrying.”

Ruby shrugs, “Is it mind control if you train a dog so it drools whenever you ring a bell? From what I’ve seen of the system, the restrictions on stuff like mind control are a lot more specific than not. It won’t stop you from training an animal with treats.

“No, what the system cares about are the more classic examples of mind control you see in fiction. Stuff like slave collars and using multiple layers of hypnosis to completely change a person. Though I do find it interesting that whoever made the system cares about that specifically.”

Ace, “Whoever made the system is old enough to have seen all forms of nonsense. They must have felt something about mind control was particularly offensive.”

Susan laughs, “That or they just don’t like stories that lean on it as a crutch. Why did the friend betray you? Mind control. Why is the king evil? Mind control!

“We have to remember, the person who set up the system in our universe did it because they felt bad about what they did. Not because they started a chain event that would have wiped all life and they were forced to make it right, but because they felt bad and had enough pocket change for a bandaid.

“With that in mind, think about who would be developing a system like this. It literally gamifies life and it isn’t like the person who bought it was going out of their way to buy the best. We basically have the entertainment package deal. Not because wiping out an entire universe is a big no-no, but because doing so made one person feel kind of bad about it.”

Og raises an eyebrow, “Bit of a rant there. Are you feeling better now?”

With that, the group takes a moment to calm down. All the while, Doyle is talking to Ally about what he just heard.

Doyle, ‘Does what she said have any connection to reality?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Yes and no. While I wouldn’t call it an entertainment package, the system we have is certainly not top of the line. However, it is one of the better ones when it comes to helping people advance on their own path. Which is part of why it has paths in the first place.

‘The traditional rpg setup from your world with just levels, stats, skills, and maybe the classic classes is both easier to gain power in and yet harder to advance. In those, you’ll have lockstep progression and very specific bonuses from, for instance, getting plus one to Strength. They won’t even have varied names for the stats, with the most direct translation being the same across the entire system.

‘So, while this certainly isn’t the most expensive system out there. It is actually meant more to help us than anything else. Now, I won’t claim that the True Immortal that first stepped foot in this dimension actually cared about the fact their actions doomed an entire universe.

‘However, they didn’t have malicious intentions or even just neutral ones when they bought and installed the system. After all, my mom wouldn’t have moved her court here if there was a problem with the system.’

Doyle nods, ‘That does make sense.’ And then the two turn back to Ace and friends. They haven’t quite finished talking, but are soon ready to continue exploring the floor. Though of course they make sure to harvest all the sunflowers.

An understandable thing that leads directly to their first encounter on the floor. As they approach the next circle of sunflowers, Susan develops a bit of a headache. She motions the party to stop, but it is too late, they’re already within range of the Udoroot.

Susan was just lucky and managed to resist the false sensory input. This meant she was free to spot the fact that the sunflowers ahead have actually all turned to face the group. Not before Og and Jack are hit with confusion, though.

Then before they can recover, the sunflowers seem to release an intense beam of light which wraps everyone in fire. Fire that while it burns, isn’t the biggest threat. The entire team feels an intense pressure on their mind that tries to lock them down.

In particular, Jack who unlike Og hadn’t kicked the confusion, was overly sensitive to it and is locked in place.

And at the same time, a stealthily thrown dagger from Susan slows down and stops midair. Good thing the Udoroot can only manifest two abilities at a time though as in stopping the dagger and maintaining the energy stun, it wasn’t able to stop Sammy. A thing it probably should have focused on as her sword is more than able to slice off the Udoroot’s crown of flowers.

Still, the plant monster gets in one final attack. It throws its entire might behind a mind thrust at Jack who still hasn’t recovered from the stun and Jack falls to the ground.

Susan rushes over to his side and finds that while he still breathes, he isn’t responding. One health potion later and Jack seems to have stabilized, but they can’t really tell. So, after collecting up the Udoroot’s sunflowers, they make haste off the floor.

Back in town, Jack is rushed to Doctor. Though once there, Ace is disappointed that nothing can really be done. Doctor took his time, but in the end he could only shrug as the wound wasn’t physical, but rather in Jack’s mind.

As Doctor puts away the few tools he has managed to scrounge together, he can’t help but sigh. “Ace, I don’t see any reason why Jack shouldn’t recover. However, that could have been instantly deadly. We need to do more research into psionic powers.”

Ace nods, “We already saw the one guy and now the dungeon has psionic monsters. My question is how we can better protect against it and what stats will that require?”

Doctor turns to Ace, “Any of the mind stats will help. In particular, though, I would say Presence should be the best. Yes, the description does talk about projection, but I suspect it can help protect against enemy projections as well. Besides that, the other two are likely about even. In fact, we might want to strive for balanced mental stats in general.

“With body and soul stats, an imbalance doesn’t really cause a problem. For the mental side, though, I can see problems developing in those who are too unbalanced. This is only an observation at this point, but those out of towner mages who only focus Intelligence all seem to be falling into the loner wizard trope while the more balanced don’t show signs of mental warping.”

Ace frowns, “That could be a very serious problem. The idea of minmaxing stats is very ingrained from the pre-system game culture so it is quite likely that casters will try and focus on one to the exclusion of others.”

Doctor nods, “Thankfully that one room on the eighth floor should help a little around here. Plus, while people are willing to throw everything at one stat in a game, I suspect they won’t be as willing to do so with this. After all, it is one thing to have a game character with only a few points in Wisdom and an entirely different thing if people see you as a person who is not wise.

“And yes, anyone with half a brain will realize the Wisdom stat doesn’t actually make you wiser. However, if a person knows enough to realize that, hopefully they’ll know better than to neglect their mental stats. We aren’t even sure what they do exactly after all. Not like we have someone with a thousand points in each to tell us more.”

Ace sighs, “True enough. Now, how long do you think Jack will be down?”

Doctor, “Three days at most. While he was hurt, it is a wound he can heal from. Though once he does wake up, we’ll need to lecture him on putting more points into his mind. If anything, this experience should have unlocked a new path that might help him resist such attacks in the future.”

Ace, “I know I have a new option or two after resisting. Though the fact he wasn’t able to resist might be a problem. If anything, I can make something out of the sunflowers from that monster.

“Most of them vanished when we left the dungeon. Disturbing as that means we didn’t actually kill the beast, but whatever the case may be, those flowers are special. I don’t think we can craft them into protective gear, but they should let us develop spells to defend against psionics.

“Oh, and we might be able to make a psionics detector with them so we can find people to train. Though from what I’ve seen, it won’t be any good for general detection and instead focused on finding out if someone has the potential for it or not.”

Doyle, who had been watching this all, turns to Ally. ‘Well, that was a close one. I thought we were going to lose our first founder. Anyway, got any insight into what they just said? While I enjoyed psionics in a story, I’m not exactly knowledgeable on the reality of it.’

Ally, ‘Ace mostly has it right. Though I suspect they could probably make something with those flowers that would protect someone, there just isn’t anyone skilled enough and material gained from actually killing an Udoroot will work better. As for detecting potential? He is spot on with that. In fact, the most basic method of detecting psionic potential everywhere is to use some part of a psionic monster.

‘Though a sunflower will certainly be a much better tool. They preserve a lot better than say an eyeball or a tongue, especially when to use them people have to physically touch the part. Still, no matter how common psionics are in this branch of humanity, Ace will be lucky to find even one in town.’

Doyle chuckles, ‘I suspect you will be surprised with us. Not only do we have a lot of literature on the subject, but even before the system we had a ton of people that believed it was real and could be tested. I will admit, those early experiments were probably flawed in some manner, but even later research would occasionally show statistically relevant results.’

Ally looks at Doyle with an eyebrow raised, ‘A bit attached to the subject, I see? And statistically relevant? That just means they got lucky and the results skewed just enough in one direction to look important.’

Doyle tilts back, ‘I will admit to having been a bit into it when younger. Even wrote a paper on it. Given how even people I grew up with would seemingly forget our relationship after a short period of time, psionics interested me as an answer or a solution.

‘Mind you, I wasn’t thinking of it as a solution to friends or what have you. Rather, the power inherent to it seemed perfect to live a better life even if alone. Though I must admit to having a few really silly dreams about it. Like, if you had telekinetic powers, but they’re weak, you could still use them when shopping to make the stuff you’re weighing weigh less. Nonsense uses like that.’

Ally laughed at that image, ‘I understand where you’re coming from, but the thought of a mighty psionicist using his power to cheat the grocery store scale is hilarious to me.