Joe stood and left the room quickly, before stopping to look at his available skills, deciding to make sure there weren’t any surprises there, but not expecting any. There was a surprise though, another corrupted skill that he gained at level twenty, unlike all his other theorist jobs. Joe stopped in the hallway, playing with the skill before looking back up at the other corrupted skill he’d gotten under education. Is there a link? Both are related to education.. is it… Joe stopped, looking a bit closer as he realized that the symbols were different, although there were some similar symbols in it. Hm… different skills then? A new language I can’t read? But why… this…
A man came up on him from behind, growling in frustration, and Joe quickly half turned, apologizing before quickly moving down the hallway and towards the common area as the hallway was simply too narrow to allow two people to pass easily, or at least comfortably to Joe’s modern sensibilities.
Joe reached the common room and found his mind picking at the odd new ‘corrupted’ skill he’d gained but then had it driven from his mind when he heard his name called.
“Joe! It is good to see you again!” Kukurnal called to him.
Joe looked around the room, seeking Garendell or another of his apprentices, but found none of them.
“Here!” Kukurnal called again.
Joe quickly caught his wave, and found Kukurnal alone, no one else at his seat, “Where are the other three?”
“I know not, Joe. They came through the common room some time ago before rushing into the street.”
“Oh! Wow… you’ve been here since… well.. I don’t know how long but it’s been long. Sorry!”
Kukurnal waved it away, shaking his head, “Your apprentices told me of your evening rituals, so I did not wish to interrupt. I will not begrudge a man his piety,” Kukurnal finished with a grin.
Joe felt his eyebrows flicker down a bit in confusion, but decided to leave it, not really wanting to get into a religious debate with a priest. Joe nodded and quickly let the statement pass before asking his question, knowing Kukurnal could easily highjack the entire evening.
“May I ask a question, Kukurnal? Regarding dungeons?”
“Certainly.”
Joe paused, taking a moment to collect his thoughts as he planned how he wanted to broach the subject. I don’t want to appear ignorant since everyone seems to think I’m some kind of ‘master’ at whatever. Dungeons seem to be pretty… universal, so… Maybe…
“This was… a sad event that happened to one of my friends and I lost him to the dungeons. I have been searching often and know it is unlikely, but I will not give up. I was hoping that you might offer me any advice on dungeon madness and for any cure that I might use to free my friend.” Joe quickly raised a hand as the priest moved to interject before continuing, “But… I know… but…” Joe added a pleading look to his eyes, hoping to sell the story. I really hope that open ended ending is enough to distract things… let him fill in the blanks. The explanation seemed to hint at impossible to heal?
Kukurnal sighed deeply before shaking his head, “You know there is no cure for dungeon madness, Master Joe. This… many clansmen have wasted entire clan fortunes attempting to save favored heirs. There is no…”
Joe decided to continue the charade, “Even rumors?”
Kukurnal looked at Joe before settling in forward, a quiet and intense intimacy settling between them, “There are rumors of … those… who claimed to have succumbed to dungeon madness yet resisted and freed themselves. But there is no proof of such claims and no proven dungeon maddened have freed themselves.
“But, even if this is true,” Kukurnal continued, “this was the work of the maddened themselves. No outside efforts have ever succeeded.”
Joe dropped his head, playing the depressed last hope card. Joe felt a hand land on his arm as Kukurnal leaned forward, “I’m sorry, Master Joe. Truly. This is a … knowledge that the Temple of Mimir seeks fastidiously, but we have still… failed, and often.”
Kukurnal’s hand continued to awkwardly pat Joe’s arm before sitting back as Joe looked up at him, “Would you be willing to tell … everything you know of dungeon madness? I will continue to seek an answer, and I promise to offer that knowledge to Mimir if I find it. I cannot … I do not believe that there is no answer to find.”
Kukurnal smiled, brightly as he nodded vigorously, “Truly! A scholar who presses on! Yes! I’m willing to share.”
Kukurnal shifted in his seat, seeming to settle into a teaching persona with complete ease before clearing his throat and beginning, “So. Dungeon madness. What we know of it is quite little, but the madness seems to strike those who enter dungeons alone or without sufficient support. This is why groups often go in as friends who have known each other well. It is very unlikely to find members who will attack dungeons without deep, intimate, or well tested relationships. It seems that the camaraderie between peers allows party members to recognize the onset of madness and quickly pull said friends back from the abyss.
“This is the only known defense to the madness. But it is incredibly effective, and only the most dire of Great Dungeons gnaw at the edge of sanity to drive members insane even with trusted companions. Even then, madness is very rare. Only those who pursue dungeons alone succumb, and they succumb much too easily!
“As for its cause, we are uncertain, but some few believe that it is likely a curse from the gods who reject companionship, although the priests and spiritual leaders find this unlikely as the gods do not reject those who pursue life alone, nor do you ever find madness striking those who reject delving the deeps!
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“While there are many forms of madness, dungeon madness is unique, striking those who have no evidence of madness before they suddenly become little more than monsters of the dungeons themselves. There have even been cases where a dungeon mad will find itself tied to the dungeon life, reincarnating continually as a new monster within the dungeon, incessantly patrolling the route and area where the dungeoneer last died.
“Lastly, they seem to take on greater strength and capabilities, although this is less certain with some still contesting such things. That… that is … what our temple of knowledge knows… little more, and that little more is conjecture and mad ravings. We do not give credit to such things.”
Joe nodded, keeping a morose look on his face, “Would you share those? Please?”
Kukurnal shook his head before thinning his lips while looking at Joe and then continuing with a sigh, “Master Joe, please do not … do not lose yourself in this. These other rumors are such that we discredit them completely. One such is that the mad slowly transform into beasts. Other say they become immortal. Still others point to them becoming seeds for future dungeons forming, but none of these are true, or even likely true.
“We have studied the mad for generations, with six mad that we studied over millennia. They have never changed form. They have never shown to be anything more than a mindless beast attacking anything. And they have never shown to become a seed or become a foundation for a new dungeon. These we have proven as best we may.
“Every mad we have access to have never proven any such rumors. We are … scholars, Master Joe, cautious in are studies and meticulous in our analysis.”
Kukurnal’s hand rested on his arm again, tapping it with more familiarity and Joe smiled warmly with a hint of sadness, letting it go. Well… that worked. Hopefully he doesn’t connect me to what happened today. Or that I don’t know this stuff… it seems too … widespread to be ‘unknown.’ Although, the others who went mad and broke free seem to be… well… I don’t know that, actually… maybe they get branded with a big ‘M’ for mad, and forced to be outcast.
Joe decided to drop it and move on, glad enough for the information he’d received, “Thank you, Priest Kukurnal.”
The priest nodded warmly in response and Joe returned the smile. The table settled into a silence tinged with a very subtle awkwardness before Kukurnal quickly brought up his own topic, starting their new conversation with a doozy, governing bodies and the modern democratic system. Something that Joe had mentioned in passing at their last meeting, which Kukurnal had snapped on like a rapid dog and refused to let go, his fascination obvious.
“So, Master Joe! This … ‘democracy’ you speak of… I wish to speak more of it!” Kukurnal’s excitement obvious in his forceful declarations.
“Ah. Yeah, sure. Could I order supper quickly?”
“Of course! Of course,” Kukurnal nodded excitedly.
Joe took a moment to pull a waiter over and get an order in before turning back to Kukurnal, “So, what would you like to know?”
“So… you were saying that a democracy does not have a leader? That all are leaders?”
“Hmm… not exactly. I guess an absolutely pure democracy would be that, literally, but such a setup is… quite unwieldy and unlikely to succeed, well… I guess with the internet and some careful set up it’d be possible now? Maybe?
Anyway, the current democracies we have are set up where some members of society are given positions of leadership to control certain minor, regular, or repetitive tasks and allowed to make such decisions freely within certain constraints as given by their laws. Then the leade…”
“Laws? How are such laws formed? Are leaders making such laws?”
Joe waited patiently before nodding, “No. In a pure democracy, the laws are voted on by all people.”
“Vote… you used this word the previous night. It’s meaning is still difficult for me to grasp.”
“Well, a vote is when…” Joe trailed off as his food came and he quickly settled it in front of him before continuing, “A vote… right. A vote is when all the people who have the right to vote get together and say what they want to happen. So, in a pure democracy, it would be all adults who would vote. So one person, or maybe a group, would bring an idea to do, like… maybe wanting to spend money in a new way, or adding to the budget for something the countr… clan is already doing; something unusual and not accounted for in the daily normal operation.
“Likely, there would be a debate where everyone would be able to debate the merits or detriments of this new idea… uh… policy, then after a time, someone might ask to vote for it or not. They would then ask if people wanted this new policy to be enacted and everyone could say yes or no. Then they count how many said yes, and if enough said yes, then they would tell the current leadership the new change and the leaders would have to follow this new way of doing things.”
“This… they take a vote from… everyone? And count it?”
“Well… everyone… usually is only adults as children amongst my people are seen as not well wise enough to make a good choice, but otherwise, yes.”
“That… truly incredible. Such an effort to count the numbers must take an exorbitant number of merchants? And be quite costly! Merchants are known to be greedy!”
Joe frowned at this statement, covering it by looking down to scoop up another sip of soup. When he’d recovered enough, he looked back up, “Hmm… merchants. Some are merchants, but often the volunteers come from many different jobs.”
“Hmm… if it is only counting, then it is possible that such a thing is possible, but I must assume that many people count, then each of these countings are combined together? Such a thing would require merchants.”
“Adding numbers requires merchants?”
Kukurnal nodded firmly as Joe took a moment to sop up a couple bites of soup soaked bread.
“May I ask a question, Kukurnal?”
“Certainly. We have done well to freely exchange and you have offered me more than enough to be willing to continue this.”
Hmm… still… quite calculative. Joe hid his sigh, never really liking relationship based on such mercenary calculations, deciding to leave it and continue the conversation, “So, I wish to order some cookies for us, as a dessert and a thank you. I want three deserts for each of my apprentices, myself and you. How many cookies would I need to order, total?”
“Hmm… such a question is best answered by merchants, but…” Kukurnal trailed off as he began playing with his fingers, cautiously setting aside a set of ‘dessert’ each time he was able to figure it out, his fingers slowly counted and the numbers silently mouthed while his eyes took on a distant look.
After another bit of time, Kukunral looked up with a nod, “I believe you would need fourteen, but I am no merchant and would recommend you ask for more in caution or ask a bartender or waiter. Bars, restaurants, and stores often keep low level merchants for such situations.”
Joe boggled a bit, then nodded, quickly closing his mouth, but Kukurnal quickly caught it and cocked his head in confusion.
“You seem surprised. Is there something.”
“It’s just… it is of no consequence, Kukurnal.”
Kukurnal quickly sat forward, eyes wide and the avid feral look of a rabid starving dog erupting from him, “You have something you could show me?”
Joe sighed, before nodding and diving into mathematics. Kukurnal proved to be a strong learner, but found understanding simple addition and subtraction almost beyond him. It was not being able to do the work, but actually understanding the concept itself seemed beyond him.
Despite having a piles of nuts spread across the tabletop, and an extensive discussion of several hours, Kukurnal finally gave up, dismissing it as unimportant or unnecessary, relegating it to ‘just the merchants’ with enough disdain that Joe was able to catch it. Joe almost tried to argue the importance of mathematics, but retreated, deciding it could be another day as he was exhausted. So Joe sat back relieved, long having finished his meal. Just as Joe felt that their meal and discussion was finished, Kukurnal quickly returned their discussion back to his original topic: democracy. Joe hid a sigh behind a stiff smile and listened to Kukurnal with respect. Going to be a long night… arguing politics with a priest.