Dungeon Raider System

Uriel was left in shock when instead of the beating of a lifetime, he received a soft kiss on the cheek before Luna stood upright. At that very moment, all the people who remained helplessly asleep suddenly woke up after receiving an apology from 'this man'.

"What the hell was that for?" Uriel said as he wiped his cheek the same as if a puppy had licked him.

"You saved me in my dream, you and Medusa did." Luna smiled as she squinted her eyes leaving Uriel agape and so confused he almost forgot the reason why he woke her up.

"I'd love to discuss about your dream, but I'm afraid we'll have to jump directly into business..." Uriel then proceeded to put Luna up to date with his side of the situation to seek for her guidance.

"In my dream..."

"This is really important," Uriel cut her short. "I know they're here, but so far everyone's failed to locate a single god within the walls. Other than Arausio, but according to Dana he won't be a problem for the next hundred years or so."

"That's not true, I was able to not only locate a god but also identified her as the one responsible for the curse that afflicts my family. Not that I care about it anymore." Medusa said as she showed up and while the last sentence caused Uriel a slight chuckle, it became clear she was not joking. Especially when she went into detail about what happened without showing a hint of emotion, making her sound more like Luna than Luna herself.

"In my dream," Luna continued as though nothing strange happened. "I saw a god. His name was Morpheus, but he also goes by the sandman. It was a particular looking creature and I was able to study it, though not as in depth as I would have liked."

"So they are here! I knew it!" Uriel celebrated being right for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

"What are our chances of defeating them?" Medusa probed.

"You are rushing me and I don't like when you do that." Luna complained.

"She's right, you know how she gets under pressure." Uriel scolded an unrepentant Medusa.

"To answer your question in detail. If we were to face all the gods present in this megacity at once, one by one the result would be the same. It would be our undoubted defeat and if we died a swift dead, we should consider ourselves lucky. In fact, even if the entire city teamed up to fight against a single god the result would be the same." Luna spoke somberly as always, but there was a hint of an emotion Uriel did not recognize in her eyes.

"That bad... not that I'm surprised." Uriel admitted wryly.

"But you defeated one of them and you said you defeated a god in their own domain. Why are you being such downers?" Medusa scoffed.

"Because what I defeated was not Arausio, but a vessel. A person who allowed themselves to be possessed by that crab. The real thing is likely much more difficult to deal with." Uriel replied now wondering what was wrong with Medusa.

"Thanks to the information I know have, I reached a few conclusions and I'll mention them without a specific order: A god's power is absolute and they cannot be defeated in normal circumstances. I learned this during my fight against Morpheus, since the only reason why I was able to defeat him was due to the knowledge you shared with me about warfare history and a few comments Medusa made in passing about physics, there was also my hybrid personality and the fact that I could hide how scared I was. But even then, I don't see a way I could have killed him which means he would have turned the tables against me."

I also suspect the reason why no god has been spotted is because none of them are actually present here and are instead in their own domain. This doesn't mean we're in the clear as they intend to come and one of the reasons why they've yet to show up is because the infrastructure they need to either contain their power or be allowed into this world has yet to be put in place. The problem is that we currently don't have a way to keep them from doing so, especially after they possess a human." Luna spoke in an organized way as always, but she showed signs of distress that were strange to her.

"Could it be... do you think we are under a mind attack?" Uriel asked.

"Do you think we're acting weird?" Medusa tilted her head.

"We definitely are. Your case may be explained by the fact that you were recently cursed with a god that removed your ability to experience love..." Luna explained, but Medusa quickly rebuked her theory and put Uriel on the spot at the same time.

"That can't be it, I've been over Uriel for a long time now."

"That may be the case, but love is experienced by all of us in many different ways. Not all love is romantic, but they all shape our character and behavior," Luna shook her head. "the diagnose for a person incapable of experiencing love is a psychopath and I believe if you look it up in the encyclopedia you'll find Uriel's portrait."

"Ha, ha, look at you making jokes now. I believe the Greek had a definition for each kind of love... but I can't remember any." Uriel paled at the thought of becoming an idiot, Luna becoming emotional and Medusa a Psychopath as that not only would change their dynamic as a group but would have a greater impact.

"I know what's going on and it's not a psychic attack. In those cases, the more conscious you are about it the less it affects you. But in this case, we're only affected because we are aware of it."

"Make that make sense... please." Uriel whimpered as he ruffled his hair as if rattling his neurons could finally get them to work.

"You may already be familiar with the placebo effect which causes a patient to experience the benefits of a drug or medicine after consuming a inert substance such as water or sugar. As long as they're not aware that they were given a placebo instead of medicine, patients can experience not only psychological effects but their bodies can even fight off disease as if they were given antibiotics. How does the placebo effect works remains a mystery to science, but it is well documented and is one of the reasons why clinical trials are always divided between test and control group."

"Of course we know about that, we're not idiots." Medusa scoffed.

"Speak for yourself, I can hardly follow the meaning of her speaks... words!" Uriel clung his nails on his face and dragged them all the way down to his chin in a futile attempt to keep himself from becoming irremediably an idiot.

"Calm down, it's going to be fine." Medusa said with the same tone she would use to read a grocery list which instead of comforting Uriel made him feel worst.

"Someone stop this... I don't want to be like Nika."

"You're now treading into potato level IQ, which means Nika will outsmart you ten out of ten times." Medusa laughed, unsure if she was enjoying the mockery or the cruelty of the moment.

"Shut up, both of you! I've had it with your childish behavior. You're grown up hunters and I expect you two to act that way." Luna mimicked her mother's demeanor causing both hunters to sit on the ground and assertively nod.

"Yes ma'am."

"There is also an effect that's completely opposite to the placebo effect and it's called the nocebo effect. In that case, subjects had been forced to consume what they thought was poison after explaining them in full detail the symptoms they would experience. Of all the hundred subjects, over half of them declared feeling sick, though only thirty percent actually showed physiological evidence of being affected by the poison." Luna explained and Uriel looked at her as though she spoke in a different language.

"What does that mean?"

"To put it simple, you two believe to be affected by a curse and now you're experiencing its effects. And all it takes for it to end is to realize that you are not, in fact, affected by anything other than your own perception of reality."

"That was deep." Uriel mused as he looked at his own hands like he just discovered fire. It suddenly dawned on him that although flux energy was always present in the world, it could only be harnessed by a society that reached certain intellectual level and self awareness as a species. In other words, that despite being a natural phenomenon, it responded only to sentient beings.

At that moment, the very concept of the elements finally sunk in his mind. Air didn't feel lifeless anymore and he saw the infinite complexity of earth along with the pristine beauty of a drop of water. It was a moment of epiphany that almost brought him to tears.

"I don't feel any different," Medusa shrugged as she rummaged around in search for something. "is there not a single cup of good ol' cheeky chicken in this dumspter?"