Good news at breakfast. I am now to have more protected civil rights. The government has proposed a change to the constitution that bans discrimination based on having essences or essence abilities and allows free use of abilities unless they cause direct harm to other people. It has already passed the lower house. Well, it could be worse. And, lo, it becomes worse.
We are retasked. Officially. Factually I would call it put on standby and given a task to prevent stupid thoughts. I resent that. I have more stupid thoughts while taking a shower than other people in a whole month.
I am now a teacher of applied ritualistics and my students are supposed to arrive the day after tomorrow. In the mean time I am officially charged with coming up with a schedule. I have no idea how many students I’ll get. What kind of students. How many materials. I am not even sure where to teach. In other words: bullshit
And the detection device has been „repurposed“. I do have another device and the world of the sixth sense, which my tricorder calls an aura sense, to enter. This sounds like I believe in healing crystals, but I suppose people who are hoarding healing potions have no standing to complain in that regard, so henceforth aura sense it shall be. In short, I do not mind.
There is one exception, though. Technically two students are already present. Ulrike and Dejan have been made students. Ridiculous. Thomas and I have put the students on preliminary leave.
Now we are doing aura science. So far we have not succeeded in finding anything but people that has an aura. Vegetation we have tested in particular. Nothing. Also nothing I can conjure has an aura. Nor does my aura change in a detectable manner while conjuring. Right now I am conjuring a cup. Purple mist develops and in about half a second a cup is resting on the floor. I dismiss it. The process reverses. Thomas, who stands with his eyes closed and his back turned to me, does not react. The experimental protocol is that I throw a coin and depending on the outcome either conjure something or not. We both note the result. He is insisting on repeating this very often for statistical significance.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Have I mentioned that [Equip the Army] is among my favorite abilities? I have switched to wearing only conjured socks and underwear. Wet after a shower? [Equip the Army] gives you a soft towel. I have overcome my initial horror at finding that the absorbed water vanishes together with the dismissed towel. OK, [Dance to my will] helps to really dry your back. In case you wondered, it cannot do the job alone. It only works on solid objects. I’ve tested that.
We switch to testing [Dance to my Will]. That is a solid hit. I change colour, as he puts it, when I move anything. His hit quota is an unbeatable 100%. That actually annoys him a little bit. You cannot calculate error bars with 100% hits.
--
Life has gotten even better. In recognition of the legislature’s intent to ban discrimination based on having essences the ban on us using cafeterias has been lifted. Ice cream is the best thing in the world. Fries. Ketchup. Cucumber salad in vinegar. Rice with gravy.
The cooks show a surprising amount of understanding for people who get very small portions of many things.
--
I’ve hit a new low point. We are doing parapsychology. The classic guessing the cards. I am a failure. I do get an interesting result with pictures. Apparently Thomas loves birds. I get a statistically significant quota of hits in detecting when he looks at a picture of birds. He can even calculate error bars. I love science as much as the next nerd, but this guy is another category.
We are left pondering how to turn this into a repeatable experiment for publication when the time for dinner arrives. The joy is even larger if you can share it with friends. We decree that fraternization of teachers and students is permissible.
U: You did the tests like in Ghostbusters?
P: Yes, well, we used ordinary playing cards. No joy.
D: You need to use electric shocks.
He has seen the movie. No question about that.
T: But apparently pictures with emotional content do give a result.
P: But we are working on turning this into a repeatable experiment independent of the test subject.
D: That is easy. Use porn.
That man is a genius.
--
Major Carstens is meeting his favorite spy
S: What are your instruction?
MC: We freeze the project.
S: Merely freeze.
MC: What the government redicides, it may redecide again. As long as I do not get specific written orders, we do not throw away options.