Ch16
The next month went by with what could only be called militia training. We assisted in the escape of the tieflings and gnomes, risking life and limb just for Wulbren to dismiss us afterwards. I hate that guy honestly.
As for me, I was still insistent on helping Durge and I succeeded in my experiment and proved the negative relationship between stress and good cognitive function. Though because of how obscure psychology is as a topic I can only be curious as to what I will receive from it.
[Psychology exam starting]
My mind traveled once again into the ever turning black hole. Dusty homely smells greeted me and I found myself lying down on a sofa, turning to the side, to my utter displeasure, I see Sigmund Freud sat there, clipboard in hard and gazing down at me.
"In this session I will be asking you a few questions, please do your best to answer to the best of your abilities." This… is certainly new.
"I guess I'm ready when you are then Freud" It was just weird addressing a famous dead man.
"Perfect, so let's start easy at the beginning" He pulled out a massive file of papers and begun to read, "The first psychology book that Wilhelm Wundt wrote, what was it called?"
God, Wundt, I hated learning about him, all he did was make people stare at lights and talk about their feelings, "Principles of the physiological psychology 1874"
"Good, did you ever find yourself jealous of your dad for marrying your mother?"
"What? No! Your Oedipus complex theory is gross, no one falls under that" I'd rather have Ethel asking me questions at this rate. But nevertheless, we continued the questions from the very start, to the far future, which I could not answer. Then at the very end I was given chance to explain my experiment, from the sample, research methods and to criticise it also, but also show why it was an important experiment.
"Very good Charles, I think we have reached your conclusion. You are obviously afraid of horses because they remind you of your father's—"
"STOP! Nope nope nope, none of that. I'm not little Hans and I want to leave." I stand up and leave through the therapy room doors.
[Exam completed! You earned:
Lv1: Freud guardian
Lv2: Moral booster
Lv3: Mind reader - Ally of the mentally disabled
Lv4: Diagnosis - Undiagnosis]
[Freud Guardian -
Have a permanent floating Freud near you at all times, he'll automatically critical hit anything that tries to affect your psyche. Scales with psychology level.
lv1 - 4dmg
lv2 - 15dmg
lv3 - 40dmg
lv4 - 110dmg ()
lv5 - 240dmg
lv6 - 500dmg]
[Moral booster -
Within 30ft, all allies will be immune to fear and other mental effects, including the mundane ones.]
[Mind reader -
You now have permanent access to anyone's mind with a lower intelligence score than you! No need to risk it]
[Ally of the mentally disabled -
Narcissism, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, autism literally any mental condition in the world, you name it and they're your friends.]
[Diagnosis -
Give a being with lower wisdom than you a mental condition of your choice through touch! They will not be affected by [Ally of the mentally disabled]]
[Undiagnosis -
Remove a person's mental condition through touch, you now have a whisp of whatever that would be.]
"God these are just…. weird." As I say that a ghostly Freud appears next to me with knuckle dusters, "What is weird except a projection of your own insecurities?" He states.
[Freud Guardian: toggled off]
"I've had enough of him today, I can't be doing with more. I'll activate him again when I'm about to fight a psionic enemy." I carry on looking through the abilities, "[Ally of the mentally disabled] That just seems like an awful idea, I guess the others gave me a passive like this, but why not 'Ally of psychologists' instead?"
But now that I have the diagnosis set I can go and help everyone in last light inn. I have a hag's bag of trinkets from when I did my hag exam, so I can store all the conditions in there. It was still evening so I walked the cobbled path over to Durge, he and everyone else seemed to just ease up a little bit near me now. It was quite nice knowing I'm responsible for that.
"Hey Durge I've got something new that I think can help you out, wanna come with me?" Absentmindedly, I start thinking, as he's a ranger my intelligence will be higher that his right? [Mind Reader activated]
(In Durge's mind) "Grab his forearm and rip the flesh off the bone! Feast upon his eyes!"
"Jesus fucking Christ!" What on earth is going on up there? That's just unnecessary!
"Are you okay?" Durge said leaning forwards.
"Uhm, fine thank you. Anyway I need you to keep still for a moment, ideally, I'm going to remove something bad from your mind" I open up my hag bag and reach for his head. When touching it I heard:
[Undiagnosis activated, remove -
audiocentric hallucinations
insomnia
sociopathy
anxiety
bipolar
borderline personality disorder
select which ones you want to remove]
"Uh damn, you really aren't okay are you pal?" I say to Durge. I selected all of them before pulling my hand away, 6 whisps of darkness followed my hand and I led them straight to my hag bag. "So how do you feel? Any changes?"
He paused for a moment and staggered around for a moment before saying, "The voices… they're gone! They're truly gone! I don't know how to thank you, truly" He pauses and looks at me with appreciation like no other.
"Just promise me you get a good stab into Ketheric, when we have to fight him." I smile and pat his shoulder. It's not like he has anything to offer me anyway, the guy has no memories. And apparently that isn't classed as a psychological disorder, I wonder why. Maybe if I specialise in memories then I could help, but definitely not now.
That evening I went through every single person in last light inn, I asked them if I had permission to remove any negative effects before I did so of course. Naturally, there were a few that said no, ultimately I now have a LOT of PTSD in my hag bag.