Allen cleared his throat. “Okay, the first thing you need is the Neuromancer Job at tier nine or ten,” he said. “Which means you should go from Mentalist to Savant first, and then Neuromancer should be available with a Dusk shift.” While Nora spent her Job points, Allen quietly followed his own advice, using all but one of his five points to get to Neuromancer at tier ten.
Job: Neuromancer
The Neuromancer bends the mind and senses of their foes to their will.
Class: Mage/Rogue/Ranger/Swashbuckler – Type: Basic – Tier 10
Description:
Your magic pulls at the strings of your enemy’s senses and warps what they are able to perceive. You connect with the mind and learn its workings, allowing you to distract, deceive, control, and communicate. Though only scratching the surface, your magic has many uses, both large and small, dangerous and benign. Through Dusk, the Neuromancer wields the power of the world within.
Modifiers: Mana Shift: Dusk.
“This Job doesn’t look like it can do illusions,” Nora said. Her eyes darted over to catch Allen’s reaction, but he only nodded.
“That’s true, it can’t,” Allen began with a simple smile. “Mind Magic Illusions, especially visual ones, are extremely difficult, but it pays off in the end by a lot. Until you hit level two-hundred, the most you’ll be able to do is tug on someone’s attention or sense of fear, which is technically an illusion. Not all illusions are visual or auditory.” Allen had to actively stop himself from rambling on in lecture mode before they had even gotten started.
Nora took a deep breath and pushed herself back on her stump. It almost looked like she was pouting for a moment. “A light illusion Job could make visual illusions at level fifty,” she said.
Allen pursed his lips, which Nora quickly saw.
“I-I mean—!”
“No, you’re right again, but it would look like crap and be completely obvious to anybody, even without Mana Sense,” Allen quickly interrupted. Nora looked down at the few tufts of grass poking up around the light-starved forest floor. She was definitely pouting. “Speaking of which, I need to get that skill, or at least Mana Sight… Any of my Jobs might have it, but probably Spellspear.” Allen pulled up his list of available skills for Neuromancer only. He would have time to spam his Skill points away later; now was time for mind magic 101. “Oh, holy crap there’s a lot of them. I guess I have just been sitting on this for a while.”
Skills Available to Job: Neuromancer
Tier 4 – Active: Neurotether – Category: Mind Magic – Tether a mind magic spell or mental framework to a target’s mind.
Tier 4 – Active: Mental Manipulation – Category: Mind Magic – Manipulate the framework of target minds within range.
Tier 3 – Active: Psychoclast – Category: Psychic Magic – Send a scream of raw psychic energy into the mind of your enemy.
Tier 3 – Active: Mind Pull – Category: Mind Magic – Tug on the mental framework of a target’s mind within range.
Tier 3 – Active: Psychic Corruption – Category Psychic Magic – Send fractured thoughts and corrupted frameworks to a target mind to inflict damage.
Tier 2 – Active: Psion Burst – Category: Psychic Magic – Release a discharge of corrupted psions and deal damage to minds.
Tier 2 – Active: Telepathy – Category: Mind Magic – Establish a telepathic tether with a target mind.
Tier 1 – Active: Inhuman Presence – Category: Mind Enhancement Magic – Enhance the framework of your own mind and become something more.
Tier 5 – Passive: Share Sense – Category: Psychic Magic – Share one of your senses with a target mind.
Tier 4 – Passive: Psychic Barrier – Category: Psychic Magic – Close and shield your mind to outside influence.
Tier 3 – Passive: Inner Peace – Category: State of Mind – Clear your mind and become more focused.
Tier 3 – Passive: Mind Sense – Category: Mind Magic – Sense the framework of the target minds around you.
Tier 2 – Passive: Psychic Link – Category: Psychic Magic – Establish a long distance psychic connection with a target.
Tier 2 – Passive: Memory Bank – Category: Mind Magic – Encode a memory into a mental framework.
Tier 6 – Meta: Mental Capture – Category: Mind Magic – Record a sensation, sound, or image framework to use on a target mind through another skill.
Tier 3 – Meta: Phantom Touch – Category: Mind Magic – The contact of your mental empathic anchor becomes difficult to sense.
Tier 2 – Meta: Inner Eye – Category: State of Mind – See the casting of unseen mind magic.
“Oooh, damn. Psychoclast right off the bat. Definitely getting that one, Psion Burst is just a meme, but I might play with it for a bit anyway.” Allen chuckled to himself for a moment, then he quickly suppressed his borderline manic grin and cleared his throat again. “Alright, first we’re just going to figure out regular telepathy. You need what’s called a mental empathic anchor, or mind link, to send and receive telepathy from somebody who doesn’t have one themselves, or somebody who uses Dawn aspect empathic magic, like Phantom.”
Nora furrowed her brow. “Um, do I need a skill to get one of those things?”
“That’s the neat part, you don’t,” Allen replied with a coy smile. “It comes included with the Neuromancer Job; your mind has already been remodeled without you even noticing!”
“…Oh.”
“Anyway, get Mental Manipulation and Mind Sense,” Allen began. “You should have those two, along with Psychic Barrier and Inner Eye if you have them.”
“I only have five skills…” Nora started. “Psychic Barrier isn’t here, but the others are.”
“…Oh.” Allen rubbed his nose. “That’s normal, more than ten skills isn’t. I’ll have to ask Christopher about magical affinities later.”
“I also have… Inner Peace and Psion Burst,” Nora added.
“Okay, get Psion Burst, but only bother with Inner Peace if you don’t have Dead Calm. It’s pointless if you have Dead Calm… You do have Dead Calm right?” Allen paused, rolling his tongue around and waiting until Nora nodded. “Okay, any questions?”
Nora seemed to think for a moment; her eyes flicked up and down an invisible screen only she could see. While waiting, Allen quickly plonked a few points each into three of the four skills he had told Nora to get.
Skill: Mental Manipulation
Manipulate the framework of target minds within range.
Category: Mind Magic – Type: Active – Tier 9
Effects: Manipulate minds and mental frameworks through the application of your will. Will can be extended through space within a certain range and shaped to your liking; precision and efficacy of manipulation is proportional to focus and the tier of this skill; range of 48m. Manipulation may cause self-harm and mental strain if used recklessly.
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Cost: None
Skill: Mind Sense
Sense the framework of the target minds around you.
Category: Mind Magic – Type: Passive – Tier 8
Effects: Sense surface level minds and simple mental frameworks in range around you; resolution is proportional to focus and the tier of this skill; range of 42m. Mental frameworks beyond your comprehension will cause extreme mental strain.
Cost: 5MP/min
Skill: Inner Eye
See the casting of unseen mind magic.
Category: State of Mind – Type: Meta – Tier 9
Effects: See simple surface level mind magic as a metaphysical representation. See mental frameworks and minds as metaphysical representations. Range is equal to range of main sensory skill.
Cost: None
“Um, master?” Nora spoke up.
“Just Allen is fine.”
“Um, Allen… What is the difference between Mind Magic and Psychic Magic? Psion Burst says it’s Psychic Magic. Also, what’s a mental framework?”
Allen laughed lightly. “Good questions my padawan,” he said. “Padawan means student,” he quickly added before Nora could get out more than a single “um.”
Allen stretched out his shoulders and scooted backwards on his tree stump. While Nora looked back at him, he flicked Mind Sense on like turning on a headlamp. Inner Eye allowed him to actually see the mental frameworks around him as if he were using some kind of augmented reality headset. This showed him Nora’s mind as a rolling mass of yellow-orange ethereal webbing, sort of like cotton candy and about the size of a grapefruit. There was also a pea-sized mind at the base of a tree behind her, probably a squirrel or something. He flexed Mental Manipulation, which manifested itself as an ethereal whip-like appendage. He reached over to Nora’s mind and connected the whip to her mind, basically doing the equivalent of mentally grabbing her by the ear. Her eye twitched, but she didn’t show any other reaction.
[“This is how telepathy works if you do it the hard way,”] Allen said into Nora’s mind. She jumped and looked back at Allen though wide eyes. “Subtle, right? There’s a telepathy skill, but it’s not subtle at all, and it’s not very hard to just manually do what it does,” he added. Then he switched back to the telepathic tether with a grin. [“I can make it work both ways, but so can you. Use Mind Sense and Inner Eye to take a look at what’s happening, then use Mental Manipulation to reach out with your mind.”]
“Um…” Nora looked around the clearing and her eyes quickly settled on the mind magic tendril coming out of her head. “What’s that?” she asked, following it to where it ended in the base of Allen’s skull.
[“A mental framework, which is any construct created by the psyche. This includes the mind itself and these mental tethers,”] Allen said through telepathy. At the same time, he wiggled around the other three smaller ethereal tendrils coming out of the back of his head. [“Mind Magic uses mental frameworks while Psychic Magic uses psions, that’s the main difference,”] he added.
After a few seconds to process, Nora asked another question. “How do I do that?”
“Right,” Allen said aloud, pulling his tether away. Nora watched it float away before dangling between the two of them. “The most straight forward way to use telepathy is to make a mental appendage and reach over to a mind, those are the floaty things in people’s heads. Mental Manipulation allows you to manipulate minds at the surface level, including your own. That’s the fluffy part on the outside of the mind, it represents surface thoughts and stuff. To create an appendage, you just need to use Mental Manipulation on yourself to direct your surface thoughts into action.” Allen studied Nora’s reaction, it looked like she was trying something. “Technically, you can do it without the skill, but that’s like running without legs… wait, is that how Camila was talking to Phantom?”
“It’s not working,” Nora said. Her eyes were crossed while her mind was stretching itself towards her ears like a football.
“Maybe I should have started with something easier.” Allen clicked his tongue quietly. “Don’t force it,” he began. “It’s like the same kind of intent you use to direct your shadows, but your directing your thoughts instead. What you’re seeing is just Inner Eye interpreting the magic, so don’t think too much about how or why your thoughts can take the shape of a tentacle. That’s just, uh… figurative.”
The reference to shadow magic seemed to help, because Nora’s thoughts quickly settled down, her mind returning to normal. As she concentrated, a much more shadow-like framework emerged from her mind, only it emerged right through her face.
“Ack!” she blurted, trying to swat the wispy framework out of her eyes.
“Go out the back when you’re using Inner Eye,” Allen said, chuckling.
Nora’s face turned a bit red as she gritted her teeth. Nevertheless, her wispy mental shadow came out again, though the back of her head that time. She watched it work its way along the ground before it reached up to where Allen’s whip was waiting. Nora’s framework looked more like a feathery tree branch, as opposed to Allen’s thin tube, but they both ultimately accomplished the same thing.
“Okay, reach over to my mind and attach your tether to my surface thoughts,” Allen began, retracting his tethers like a tape measure. “All you have to do for one-way telepathy is to touch my mind. Don’t make it weird though, it’s just like putting a hand on my shoulder or something. Like I said, the fluffy part on the outside of my mind represents my surface thoughts. Just a light touch, don’t grope my mind please.”
Nora’s face turned a bit red again, but she still managed to slowly reach out to Allen’s mind. Allen just sat there, perfectly still, like a parent in the passenger seat of a car their teen was driving. “Also, don’t send me thoughts that you don’t want me to have,” Allen added, causing Nora to pause right before touching him with her shadow tether. “You have to think about which thoughts you want to send, so it’s usually not a problem.”
Nora took a deep breath and plopped the end of her tether onto Allen’s mind. [“Did I do it?”] she asked immediately.
Allen brushed away the anxiety she was sending through the tether, he could see it on her face anyway. “Yeah, good job,” he said aloud, ignoring the various emotions and non-verbal celebration that came through from her, all unintentionally. “Now for somebody who doesn’t have any mental control of their own, you’ll have to set up the other end of the telepathy yourself. It’s as easy as using Mental Manipulation to coax my mind into doing what you just did. All you have to do is send the raw subconscious intent to pick up on the other end.” Allen wasn’t really sure how effective a telephone analogy would be, but Unnamed World basically had the same thing in the form of communication totems and altars.
At first, Nora just sent the feeling of confusion. Then Allen felt the urge to look upwards, followed by a feeling of pressure inside his head, both of which he candidly ignored. “Don’t think of it directly, imagine that I can’t see your tether,” Allen supplied. After a few seconds, he felt a sudden urge to grab something, almost making his right hand twitch.
[“This is so hard, I don’t know how to get you to do something that I can’t even see you do,”] Nora said, biting her lip.
Allen grunted. “All you’re tying to do is get me to acknowledge the tether, like accepting a handshake, but in my mind.” He waited another few seconds, before he felt his attention drawn to the tether on his mind. He reached out to it with his own thoughts, completing the backwards connection. That was his own intent, but Nora’s suggestion had been close enough. [“That’s good. It’s impossible for you to actually get it to work on me with your current skills, but for somebody without mental control, that might be enough. It depends on the person. You can do more practice when we get back.”]
[“…Okay,”] Nora replied.
[“Just don’t do that for real on somebody with mind magic. It’s kinda rude. It’s like knocking on a door and then just walking right in anyway.”] Allen tapped his chin for a moment. [“Oh yeah, psions are important. First, tell me how mana and stamina manifest in the physical world?”]
Nora accidentally sent confusion through the tether again before her mind focused on the question. [“Miasma and ki,”] she replied.
[“Right, so then psions are the physical manifestation of what?”] More confusion came off from Nora. Allen could practically follow her entire thought process. Although disjointed and not entirely verbal, it was still possible to parse. He could sense the exact moment when she found her answer. “She needs to work on controlling subliminal thoughts,” he noted to himself.
[“Health?”] Nora asked, [“but that doesn’t make sense.”]
Allen grinned. [“Are you aware of the balloon model of the soul?”] he asked, continuing before Nora could even shaker her head, because she didn’t have to. [“The body runs off of stamina, and it’s the weight holding the balloon down, the soul runs off of mana and it’s the balloon, and the mind is the string tying them together, and it runs off of health. Break the weight or cut the string, and the balloon floats away.”] Allen paused to clear his throat, even though he wasn’t using it to speak. [“It’s kinda stupid, but it makes sense. When you get your arm cut off, it’s your stamina that gets its cap lowered; your HP can still max out after closing off the wound. So, stamina is your body’s fuel, while health is more like your will to live and hold yourself together. That’s why your health can go down from damage to your body, your soul, and your mind. That will to live is the intent of your mind, which manifests as psions in the form of Psychic Magic. What all this means is that psychic magic usually costs HP to use.”]
Allen could tell Nora had just made some Unnamed World shattering realization, and not just from her blank stare. That was only after the first class of Mind Magic 101; there was a lot more to learn. He chuckled lightly and pushed her telepathic tether away. “Let’s head back,” he said, “We can do some sparring with the others.” At the same time, he put a few points into Psion Burst. “Going to have some fun, shall we say… testing this.”
Skill: Psion Burst
Release a discharge of corrupted psions and deal damage to minds.
Category: Psychic Magic – Type: Active – Tier 10
Effects: Condense your will into a pulse of destructive psychic energy. Charge this energy within you and release it in a wave of damaging psionic force; damage proportional to vitality, intelligence, and the tier of this skill; range of 10m. Base mana cost is static. Health cost increases with charge; rate of 1HP/s.
Cost: 50MP base; 10HP to 100HP charged.