“Using souls of minor Adepts and perhaps ancestral spirits... I would guess twenty thousand or more living souls, who knows how many of the dead...” I rubbed my fingers together, and reached out mentally. -Cassandra, I don’t have the Akashic Awareness you do. I’m looking at a bunch of dead Adepts who I suspect are agglomerating souls to form some kind of powerful entity to forward their agenda in the mortal world. Is there movement on the psychic or akashic planes in support of this?-

The very bright /display of the most powerful telepath on the planet in Markspace turned in my direction. -There is a remarkable amount of psychic activity going on, but it is being masterfully concealed. Something is taking in psychic energy for some purpose, but so broadly that it can’t be traced on its own, like trying to measure rainwater seepage across the continent.- Ugh, visualization exercises. -I am not sensing any influence on uninvolved minds, or their resistance, even if it was minor and easily overwhelmed, would create ripples in the psyscape. If it is touching minds, they are willing and joining it.-

-Is it possible to monitor the overlap points between the thaumafield, the Akasha, and the psyscape?-

She paused in hurried thought, then reached out to Kwannon, who /hopped into the loop with Medea and I. -An interesting question, but I am not a cerebramancer,- she /smiled. -It is those points that you derive your enhanced psionics from, correct, Kwannon?-

-Yes, the interchange between magic and psi runs along those areas. Soul magic would naturally align it towards the Akasha.- Kwannon /looked at us narrowly. -You think something is exploiting those connections?-

-Done much traveling in the spaces between them?- I didn’t remember much from her there, mostly just sitting and analyzing the exchange of powers in order to replicate them. There literally was nothing there except moving energies occasionally harmonizing and synching up.

-No more than you already know,- she /admitted. -It would be a good place to hide, wouldn’t it?-

-My own Awareness does not reach in there. I have surface Awareness of the Akasha and excellent Awareness of the Psyscape, which among other things allows me to monitor the actions of the Entities of Dream. If I have a passive task related to magic, that is it.-

-So, Nightmare and his ilk are familiar with you,- I /nodded to Cassandra. -Talk about thankless tasks. The Orb of Agamotto is waving at me from the Dream worlds like every other day. There’s a lot of crap out there...-

-The mystical and psychic defenses of the Akasha and Dream of Humanity are actually remarkably deep, woven over countless ages by many practitioners against those who would prey on us. It takes a remarkable amount of power for outsiders to actively intrude into either sphere. Adding my own to their numbers, as well as hunting down those things that slip through, is one of my duties as the Headmaster of Cynosure.-

Three /kisses landed on Cassandra at the same time, and she glowed happily. -You’re going to start taking me along on some of those astral trips, and for the little ones, we’re taking Frost and some of the more advanced students. I want more esprit de corps among the Telepaths, who generally think the only way to fight for Terra is to be a Battlemind.- Kwannon /informed her in no uncertain terms.

I /reached out and one of Sama’s thoughtstreams /popped in, was caught up instantly, and blinked at us all.

I pointed at Cassandra. -We need a hard-edged corps of psychics and committed telepaths in the Astral spaces. Someone’s been exploiting our casual lack of attention there and making a move across them. Our psychic defense of the planet is pretty scattershot, right?-

Sama held out her hand to her daughter. Cassandra obediently interwove her fingers, and dumped her memories of events in the astral realms to her mother, who frowned.

-Briggs and I form massive psychic anchors in the astral realms, which really buttress humanity’s defenses,- she /told us, which matched with what I knew via Kwannon of the psyscape and akasha. Sama was like a freaking mountain, her Markspace extended down like unbreakable roots, and Nulls and Sources spread out around her, adding to the bulk or flowing down like rivers.

Briggs was that river, the leader on the flow of Human Destiny, a burning current of life, light, and pure psychic impetus heading into the future, bringing Sama and everyone else along with him to what lay ahead for us all.

Trying to affect either one of them was incredibly difficult for even non-finites, but neither of them believed they were going to last forever, and Humanity had to be able to grow and withstand attacks from this vector, too, given how much shit was interested in us.

-Of course, all that does is drive the scavengers to the fringes,- she /went on, and all of us nodded. -The poster child for this kind of defense is the Nova Force, but that is stepping on the toes of Death, because of how they went about it.-

-One way or another, the Nova Force should come under the auspices of a Death God.- My lips twisted. -Can we trust Tchernoborg to do that? It’s not like the Nova Force couldn’t throw him off, but it also sets up a precedent for Ultra Force users and our partner races.-

-Guardian of the Dead is a very noble role for a god. A Nova Force for all of humanity would naturally cut off ALL the other Death Gods, who will probably fight it, especially the Christians. Harnessing our dead is an alien and dangerous concept to many. It works for the Novas because of the innate nobility of the Xandaran people.-

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-Doing a thankless and unrewarded job to protect the planet while others prosper and profit. My, haven’t heard that before.- We all /rolled mental eyes at Sama’s words. -That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, you know. It just means the load on our people who take up the mantle will be lighter the broader it is.-

-Phoenix interference?- Cassandra /asked knowingly, and we all turned to look at the burning figure of Jean Grey over there, her psychic bonds with the hard electrum of Scott Summers clearly visible in the Markspace.

-It has no control over the dead, but it’s always watching the psyscape,- Sama /muttered. -Bored busybody of a burning bird.-

-Yes, well, it did spot that mass cloning attempt of Emma,- Cassandra /pointed out, not quite hiding her smile.

-It’s cosmic. It spots everything. It chose to ACT on the cloning, because of the threat posed to it. Those setting it up were doing so in order to try and gain psychic control of the Phoenix,- Sama /sniffed.

-Oh, shit. Wouldn’t that have ended well...- I /muttered. There truly were insane nutjobs out there! The fastest way to evade such control would be for the Phoenix to pop the sun and wipe us all!

I guess it was nice and had only used Jean to fry them all...

-I can’t move around in the psyscape, as I’m far too obvious,- Sama /informed us apologetically. I guess flying mountains weren’t subtle. Who’da thunk? -Find out if there’s something hiding in the cracks carefully. Cassandra, we’re going to need an Astral Corps. Set up a curriculum, and we’ll start populating it with people who don’t have the physical chops to be Battleminds. Making sure there’s foundation courses for all advanced telepaths to be able to assist with the job.

-We’ll make it a formal military posting at some point, at least equal to the Ice Witches and Shamans. It may be an invisible battlefield, but it’s still there, and given the numbers, it won’t be small.

-Reach out to the psychics of our partner races, and see what can be done on that end. We’ll bring them all in if possible. The Nova Force alone being able to act is as good as a sponsorship at this level, and totally worth Tchernobog’s aegis.

-I’ll let Briggs handle the talks with Bogie. The prestige alone should sell it. The only other god I might talk to about it is Anubis, and he’s too caught up with the Askar to be impartial.-

That worked out for all of us, one more stack on the hill of things to do and look out for. -You want us along for the deep scouting?- I /asked Kwannon.

Both she and Cassandra shook their heads in unison. -You’re not a psi. Even if you can’t be seen actively with your Wards up, you’ll leave a wake a mile long messing around the psyscape, and we won’t know corresponding locations in the astral unless we actually come out the far side,- Cassandra /stated firmly. -Leave this to us. We may not be able to overcome a fusion entity of scale, but we can certainly survive it and flee.-

-It’s probably waiting in ambush,- Medea /mused. -It’s been very clever about avoiding attention, but it has to know there’s a limit, especially with the deaths we uncovered before they could conceal them.-

-Then we shall see just how good it is at psychic stealth!- Kwannon /declared with narrowed eyes, glancing at me with a knowing smile.

Worked for me...

---------

-It is a shame I have no ability with magic,- Cassandra /murmured in wonder, taking in the thaumind astral landscape in some wonder.

The interplay zone between magic and psychic power was cut by countless shades of colors that couldn’t be seen by the eye, only the mind and soul. There were no two alike, for each stream, bolt, river, and flash was made up of emotions, varying in intensity, power, and mix, resonating with the manafield that responded most to such things.

Kwannon looked around keenly. -I should have come here more often, Cassandra,- she /admitted. -While I am very sensitive to this place, I have little experience with it. I inferred much of my knowledge on my own, instead of looking at the metasphere of it.- Her fingers danced on nothing, and manapsi gathered to them effortlessly.

-So much emotive power. I had wondered how the psyscape released it all. It appears as if the thaumafield is draining it away?- Cassandra /asked, studying the interplay.

-Thickening and condensing it, somewhat like what is done with an Ultra Core. Add cosmic energy to this mix, and you basically have the shell of an Ultra Core, and the beginnings of the Nova Forces,- Kwannon /agreed with her assessment. -It is why the psyscape is so responsive to advanced thought and willpower, I would assume, and not so overwhelmed with emotional storms as it might be...-

-Ahhh... This is an unbelievable amount of energy to harness,- Cassandra /sighed. -My word, harnessing the entirety of this? It would definitely be worth calling a Nova Force.-

Kwannon slowly shook her head. -No. Harnessing this force for ten thousand years and more, for the living AND the dead, is a Nova Force. Also,- she pointed, the energies following her motion shading at her will, -the Xandaran Nova Force is quite harmonious. The emotions would resonate with one another, instead of clashing, mixing, and splitting like this.-

-They have a more advanced racial mindset, while we are still bound by the competitive limits of our ancestors,- Cassandra /agreed, watching it all, and taking care not to interact with the rampant power here, certain she would set off an unintended reaction. There were many, many darker and feral emotions here, all ready to leap out wildly and mindlessly, reacting to any disturbance. Only the darker reaches of the psyscape could equal their intensity, but here they bounced around almost randomly, feeding into one another, incandescing, and being drawn away into the greater manafield below.

-This seems more like a self-defense mechanism to the human unconscious, helping drain it of emotion so that entities can’t feed directly on us,- Kwannon /theorized, looking up at the starry sky of the psyscape astral sea ‘above’ them. -I would guess someone or something set it up to protect us at some point, and it has become self-perpetuating.-

-Taking away the food of astral predators?- Cassandra /remarked. -So the human psyscape is like a desert, and they go elsewhere to feed. Ingenious. I would like to wonder if, given the scope of it, it would have been a truly celestial power, but then this is reflective of our population and the minds within it now, not a million years ago...-

-Given the number of Entities that like to tap dreams and the unconscious, I doubt it was to benefit us. Most likely denying a power source to an enemy, like burning their feeding grounds. Better yet if they could wield mana and enrich their own fields...- Kwannon /considered, nodding at streaks of black and purple running through the displays of power. -If I were a betting person, beings at the levels of the Vishanti were striking at the Lords of Fear and Hate and the like, stealing away their best food.-