Ally bristles, ‘What’s that have to do with skipping a challenge in a dungeon? They’re unrelated!’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘Au contraire! Not only are these things linked, but I think it is something you’re going to have to think long and hard about. Now, mind you, I’m not exactly much better off. While I wasn’t high on the hog pre-system. In fact, while I was not bottom of the barrel, I definitely wasn’t middle class. Until the system came, all of my experience with this kind of nonsense was through stories, something I believe we have in common.’

‘Real danger? What a joke. The only danger I faced was driving my car, if you can count that. Sure, it was dangerous, but in a mundane sort of way. And you were royalty with an overprotective mother. Joining up with me is the most danger you’ve ever been in. And don’t try to give examples of when you got away to explore on your own. You and I both know you had a stealthy guard or two nearby.’

‘Those people you deride for avoiding danger aren’t like us. Yes, they are avoiding danger but that is because they feel death just behind them. You blithely talk about people entering here to die but have never had to experience it. While it might seem like everyone should experience all the challenges in a dungeon, that isn’t a rule. If I or any other dungeon cared about such a thing, we have the ability to enforce it. All that matters is that people enter the dungeon and stick around for a while.’

Ally slumps, ‘But that isn’t how it is supposed to go! None of this is how it is supposed to go!’

Doyle sighs, ‘Life rarely goes how things are supposed to. After all, if we want to go by that, you are supposed to be off at the fae court doing your royal duty. In choosing to leave that life, so many things changed for the people around you. How could they not change for you as well?’

Ally raises her fist, ‘It needs to go how it was meant to! Ending up with you instead of a sleeping dungeon was unexpected but that should have made it easier. You can understand me! That means when I tell you things, it should be easy to do it.’

Doyle shakes his head, ‘It means I can make my own decisions as well. Almost every day for years I would go to my job and do what I was told. No choices to make, no decisions passed onto me, if anything got too big I just called someone higher on the chain to figure it out. Now here I am, with a theoretically infinite lifespan. There was exactly 0% chance of me just following orders.’

‘Not that you’ve been heavy handed mind you. I’m not going to put more on you than was there. You mostly just read from tutorial screens and asked me to show you everything that was happening. Though I guess that last part was nearly constant and it would have gotten annoying much sooner if I hadn’t figured out how to let you control the view screens.’

Ally flops back down, ‘But that wasn’t how it worked with my friends! I would make the decisions and we would do it. Even when I decided to try and become a dungeon companion, they supported me!’

Doyle sighs, ‘I have some bad news for you. Those weren’t friends. Wait, I shouldn’t be that rude to them. Maybe they were friends, but lacked the ability to do anything else. Because a true friend will disagree with you and push back. You might have thought them to be true friends when they agreed with you over whatever your mother wanted but I have some bad news for you. Either your mother wanted that or someone who was against your mother politically had a hand in it.’

Ally shakes her head, ‘That can’t be true! My mother wouldn’t let me so easily become a dungeon companion and her opponents wouldn’t be able to sneak their hands into a situation so close to my family.’

Doyle rolls his core, ‘Have you ever considered that your mother genuinely just wants the best for you? With so much power she has to have access to means beyond my imagination and if she can’t realize you weren’t right for politics, she wouldn’t have been able to stay in power so long. Of course she can’t publicly be for it, but she must have supported you from behind.’

‘Honestly? At this point, there is nothing more I can say about this. You need time to absorb the bombs I dropped. Maybe after you take some time to think it over a call to your mom wouldn’t be out of the question either. I’m sure she won’t be against it. You can even tell her I told you to do it. Anyway, I should figure out my paths.’

Ally rolls onto her side and curls up without responding. Doyle waits a moment but when nothing else is forthcoming, he leaves her to stew on the revelations. Turning back to his paths he notices a difference.

{Points: 41

Class: Dungeon Core II 10/10

Completed: Kobold Community 15/15, Goat Supremacy 20/20, Energy Well I 3/3, Commanding Subordinates 12/12, Ageless Queens 15/15, Earth’s First Home of the Limit Breakers I 1/1, Biomes Aplenty 5/5, Potion Dispensary 10/10, Elemental Animals 5/5, Cows for Milk 12/12, Vegetation Variety 20/20, Divine Border 1/1

Started [2/3]: Dungeon Core III 35/100

Available: Vine Warper 0/15, Kin Slayer 0/100, Voidborn 0/250, Axe Sharpener 0/5, Energy Well II 0/6, Expansionist 0/30, Fire’s Flying 0/7, Deal Broker 0/10, All the Potions 0/60, [UNIQUE] 0/1, Kobold Community II 15/30, Community Driven 0/10, Community Builder 0/30, Boss Builder 0/50, [TRINITY] 0/1000, Pathfinder 0/1, Know Your Enemies 0/10}

There was a new path and more points to spend. Confused by this, he pulls up his skills and notices a new addition to the list, Psychology at level 12. It explains the extra points, but he doesn’t feel he exactly earned it. Though as he thinks about it more he had been basically building mental pictures of all the delvers. It was probably just the act of analyzing Ally’s situation to her that added the skill to his list. As for the path, that was probably from the mental picture thing.

Doyle sits back and looks over the list once again. Honest? He had decided where to put his points when talking to Ally. Now, though, that isn’t the case anymore. Know your enemies is tempting. Depending on what it does, the path would be core to his future. On the other hand, it could be something as stupid as just telling him which of a delvers stat is the highest or lowest. An interesting thing to know, but overall useless.

Doyle pauses as he realizes the new path doesn’t have to change his plans. The new skill added over ten points already, which meant he could buy it and still have more points left for the rest. He nods to himself before declaring, ‘[System, I want to put 10 points into know your enemies, 15 points into kobold community 2, A point into unique, another into pathfinder, 10 points into dungeon core 3, and 4 points into trinity.]’

{10 points applied to Know Your Enemies...

1/10 - You have earned +2 Karma

5/10 - The weaknesses of your enemies become more apparent, know an enemies highest stat

8/10 - You and those you control gain bonuses to avoid the strengths of your enemies, The better you know an enemy the more effective your luck is at countering theirs, know an enemies lowest stat

10/10 - Path Complete, Predictions of what an enemy will do are more accurate, The longer you have observed an enemy the more easily you will notice if they have gained or lost something, You have earned +2 Luck and +2 Luck/Level, You have earned +1 Karma and +1 Karma/Level

15 points applied to Kobold Community II...

20/30 - You have earned +2 Karma/Level, Kobolds get +2 Karma/Level

25/30 - You have earned +2 Wisdom/Level, Kobolds get +2 Karma/Level

30/30 - Path complete, You have earned information on kobold communities and sapience, +2 Agility/Level, Kobolds get +2 Agility/Level}

{Kobolds are one of the few non-sapient species that consistently claw their way past that. This stems from the kobolds’ connection to the Karma. Not just the stat, but the Concept. While it might take a while for the first sapient kobold to appear, once one does that world is brought to the attention of the kobold’s racial Akashic. Subsequent instances of kobolds reaching sapience will skyrocket. Sadly, because of how dungeons work, a sapient kobold in a dungeon does not count. Though if one should ever leave the dungeon it will be noticed.

Communities that form around a sapient kobold are different. The sapient kobold will not always be the leader but they will always be the heart. Such communities are most likely to form in either swamps or rain forests. This is half because they enjoy those areas and half ingrained racial memory. Such areas are simply less likely to be home to other sapients who would hunt them down.

The biggest problem kobolds have in the end is that like most non-sapient species, changing to a species that is born sapient tends to be nearly impossible. Their connection to karma comes into play though, as it allows a kobold raised by sapient parents to have a nearly guaranteed chance at gaining sapience before learning to walk. This however has led to some darker practices where in some harsher areas, any kobolds that learn to walk without gaining sapience tend to at best get kicked out of the community.}

{1 point applied to Pathfinder...

1/1 - Having found a new path forward you have pulled back the curtain and realized that the system doesn’t know everything. The system would really prefer it if you didn’t pull back that curtain for others. +3 All Stats/Level, 1 Path Point refunded

10 points applied to Dungeon Core III...

40/100 - You have earned 10 stat points

45/100 - You have earned +10 Wisdom

No paths by the name of unique or trinity have been found}

Doyle sighs, ‘While it is neat that the pathfinder path refunded the point I spent on it, I should have guessed the two special paths would cause problems. After all, no matter how much it reads as unique, the word very much is not that. Though it does bring up the question of how the system is doing it if, like Ally had said, it can’t use the language either.’

‘Then again, as the kobold boss has shown, paths aren’t exactly a system creation. Rather, they appear to be more of a realization of what is already there. A little weird that you can get generic points from learning any skill that you can use anywhere. What the system does is probably more like transcribing what possibilities are there and mature enough. Probably way more paths are available to me at the moment, they just aren’t real enough yet for the system to do anything with. The only question now is how to select the two. Let’s take a quick look at the paths again and see if there is anything I can figure out from there.’

{Points: 6

Class: Dungeon Core II 10/10

Location: Kobold Community II 30/30

Completed: Goat Supremacy 20/20, Energy Well I 3/3, Commanding Subordinates 12/12, Ageless Queens 15/15, Earth’s First Home of the Limit Breakers I 1/1, Biomes Aplenty 5/5, Potion Dispensary 10/10, Elemental Animals 5/5, Cows for Milk 12/12, Vegetation Variety 20/20, Divine Border 1/1, Know Your Enemies 10/10, Pathfinder

Started [1/3]: Dungeon Core III 45/100

Available: Vine Warper 0/15, Kin Slayer 0/100, Voidborn 0/250, Axe Sharpener 0/5, Energy Well II 0/6, Expansionist 0/30, Fire’s Flying 0/7, Deal Broker 0/10, All the Potions 0/60, [UNIQUE] 0/1, Community Driven 0/10, Community Builder 0/30, Boss Builder 0/50, [TRINITY] 0/1000}

‘Well. The fact that Pathfinder doesn’t have any numbers is interesting, but not the point.’