Mage Tank

The bark and gnarls of the enormous tree branch weren’t painful to lie on, but they were definitely uncomfortable. I’d discovered long ago that my best bet in such a situation was to set my mind on auto-pilot and allow it to ruminate until the world fell away in the middle of my thoughts. I turned away from my physical experience and focused on the cerebral, contemplating Zura’s guidance and the nature of my revelations while I struggled to fall asleep.

While I’m sure theologians and experts would argue for greater nuance, in my mind revelations broke down into two parts. The first was the information or ‘truth’ that the revelation granted. The second was the ability, or ‘manifestation’ that you gained from it.

It had taken me a while to decide when it was that I’d truly gained my first revelation, the Eye’s Sight. I’d eventually concluded that it was while I was Third Layer walking leading up to the Calvani Caverns and The Cage hidden within. The Eye itself had gazed deeply into my soul and exposed all of the actions I had taken as a conscious being, from those that brought me pride to those that I so profoundly regretted that I had forced myself to seek out help and change.

The revelation did not deal with the greater world around me. It was internal. The Eye embraced me despite my flaws, forgiving my transgressions and heralding my achievements. It shared that perception, allowing me to view myself and my life from an external point of view. An experience that I was sure few people would ever receive. Ultimately, it led to a deep sense of self-acceptance and had gone a long way toward building a stable psychological foundation for me to begin my life anew in Arzia. It’s hard to feel secure when your existence is beset by turmoil both external and internal, after all.

It was the closest thing I’d ever had to a religious experience and, even so, I still considered it more akin to a sudden shift in my philosophy of self. Nothing about it made me want to commit myself to a ‘higher’ being or worship anyone or anything. I viewed Sam’lia as an ally–especially after our talk–but I didn’t see her as intrinsically superior, just vastly more powerful. Should she require any sort of offering or devotion, then my respect would have to do. It seemed like she was fine with that.

The manifestation’s relationship to that insight was not obvious. I had excellent darkvision. I could see the souls of others, which allowed me to glean knowledge about their nature and past in addition to their strength. It made it easier for me to pierce illusions and find entities hidden through stealth. It was external, but I began to wonder if my characterization of the insight was flawed. The Eye had seen me at the deepest levels, then shared with me what it saw. The raw knowledge I’d gained had been about my inner self, but See’s manifestation emulated what the Eye had done. The first step was to See the person or thing in front of me. The next step was to Reveal.

My second revelation, the Eye’s Reveal, began to take root during the Layer walk as well. I’d been able to connect to the souls of my allies and had shared my perception of the Third Layer, allowing them to escape manifestations of the inner demons that tormented them. That had been accomplished with a lot of help from the Eye and from the Xor’Drels as well, with whom I had gained a level of soul connection through the blood ritual that made me part of their tribe. My experience with Grotto and our Shared Fate trait had also helped. I was certain that the connection with my Bonded Familiar involved an intertwining of our souls. On some level, at least.

I fully realized the revelation during our fight with the Specter of Orexis. I began not only to see souls but to feel them on a more profound level. While extraordinary individuals had been what first exposed me to sensations evoked by souls that went beyond the visual, after my experience with the specter I became much more sensitive to the pressure emitted by nearby souls, be they strong or weak.

The truth that I’d received was ongoing, everpresent. It was a deeper understanding of the individuals that passed through my life, a keen vision of what their inner world might look like. The ability went hand-in-hand with that knowledge. I could interact with that world, enter it, and share my own world with it.

These were the basics. They were the fundamentals of the revelations that matched the teachings of the tribe. There was one more step in the sequence, Embrace, but the powers that it granted made me question whether or not I even desired it–the ability to forcefully alter reality for a target, to create a domain that I ruled as sovereign and sucked people into. It was very… tyrannical. Perhaps it could also be used to create something wondrous and personal to the individual I affected. Maybe it could provide someone with solace or healing, but with my lifestyle, I doubted that would be how I primarily used it. I didn’t feel great about my chances at therapizing mana monsters and psychopaths back to a healthy mental attitude amid their attempts to murder me. I had no idea what insight the revelation would grant, but it was something that also frightened me to some degree.

Then again, it sure would be handy to have a mind-melting hellscape to afflict my enemies with at the drop of a hat. I was already working on that with the Pocket Delve, though, but having two mind-melting hellscapes would be twice as good, right? I did love having options.

Anyway, there was nothing that said I must reach the Embrace stage to gain greater control, or even mastery over, my first two revelations. Each was required to attain the next in turn, but each was still its own unique revelation that could fully function without the subsequent step. The next step was helpful for understanding the prior revelation. I’d learned that much from the context that Reveal had granted when I contemplated the nature of See. However, it wasn’t necessary.

So, I began to consider how I might evolve the revelations, to shape their manifestations in bespoke ways. I leaned on my understanding of restrictions and how such things generally functioned at their best when they revolved around a dominant character trait that I possessed.

There was already something rather histrionic about Reveal. It made people see the world as I saw it. I didn’t think that I could get someone to think any harder about me if I tried. Reveal was also the second revelation, and I was an orderly man who enjoyed doing things in sequence. I took a step back to consider See.

See did a lot less in the way of demanding the attention of others. I could use the ability without anyone even realizing that I was doing so. It gave me information, pure and simple. It was information that I could use to inspire drama or draw attention, but at that point I wasn’t really using the ability, just engendering strong emotional responses with my words and actions. Perhaps I could develop a paralyzing gaze, or a killing sight, like a fantasy ninjutsu master. Maybe I could make someone feel my eyes on them, overwhelming them with my mighty presence. I still thought that I would likely lean on Reveal to get any of that done, so I filed that idea away for later.

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Of course, melodrama and light narcissism weren’t my only notable characteristics, but they damn sure synergized well with my abilities. Also effective was my tendency to be overly analytic. I endeavored, always, to predict outcomes based on past experience and my understanding of the situation in front of me. It had helped countless times in combat and had been invaluable when navigating my post-death life.

I enjoyed looking at problems from as many perspectives as possible. This extended to arguments and emotional positions, even those that were problematic. While many might find it unpleasant to consider the underlying motivations of toxic individuals and attitudes, I found the mental exercise exceptionally rewarding. Understanding was the first step in countering nefarious, darkly appealing paradigms. I could strike at the emotional and logical heart of things I found abhorrent. Understanding them so well that I could effectively advocate for them was just part of my process.

This had caused me to be accused on more than one occasion of supporting ideas that I in no way agreed with, simply because I was able to explain–with ideologically devastating appeal–the logic behind said ideas. Of course, my tendency to wax poetic without realizing that I appeared to be aggressively challenging someone’s existing beliefs oftentimes led to the misunderstanding that I was genuinely in favor of the ideas that I’d proposed. Without clearly presenting my Devil’s advocate badge beforehand, it was probably a reasonable assumption for someone to make. Those were learning moments. Terrible, socially-damaging learning moments.

Useful, though!

Trying to apply the concept of analysis to See was much easier than trying to apply (fun) egocentrism. There were a whole host of ideas that came along with that. Seeing abilities, seeing stats or resistances, seeing the past or future, then using that information to make better tactical decisions. Maybe some sort of synthesis that automatically provided a potential strategy. However, I needed to focus on something that played to my strengths and, more importantly, my passions.

Abilities, stats, and resistances were something I could figure out on my own. They were fun puzzles to solve, so I had no real desire to have a revelation do the heavy lifting there. I also had no desire to see the future, both for all the problems it would cause and also for how boring that would make things. Boredom was enemy number 1, and there was no easier way to break me. The past was interesting, but I had never been big on history. Don’t get me wrong, a firm grasp of history was informative, enlightening, and crucially important, but I had no love for it.

Instead, I considered what might have helped me recently, and what would give me an advantage right now. I needed something that would maintain utility into the future, but that wasn’t an exercise in delayed gratification. If our plans proceeded smoothly, I expected to be facing down a Delve that had crushed prodigies in the very near future. If it kept me alive, then power now was a better investment than power later. The Delve wasn’t the only difficulty ahead, though.

While I was focused on the Delve, I was also focused on the journey. There were powerful individuals who could stand between the party and our objective. Being able to persuade them to allow us to proceed might be a prerequisite to stepping foot inside the Delve in the first place. The Littan blockade was only one example, and while we’d bypassed it, that victory wasn’t an easy one after Yaretzi had gotten involved. Had I better understood the admiral’s motivations, had I been able to convince him of the truth of how outclassed he was, he may have stood down. That would have saved us a lot of grief, and the admiral a lot of Littan lives–his own among them. I didn’t doubt that other Littans might appear in our path, and there was no guarantee the other Zenithars would be as amiable as Zura.

Perhaps there was a way for me to See more deeply into the reasoning behind someone’s actions or demands in real-time. Some power of observation into the soul that provided context that I could use to my advantage. It was also possible that I could subtly deploy Reveal to signal the honesty of my own statements; a way to touch lightly on the soul and send the resonance of my veracity into them without invading or wholly entering their inner realm. I could give someone a gentle tap on the soul’s shoulder, rather than a warm and awkwardly long, full body-contact hug.

I also had some clues as to how that second part might be accomplished. Yaretzi’s evil-monologue ability, Intimacy, had granted him stacks of Blessed for revealing secrets to others. The bonus he received was based on how vulnerable the information made him and how much the knowledge changed the target’s perception of him. However, who was to say that his target wouldn’t think he was just a liar liar pants on fire?

While I hadn’t realized it then, I hadn’t really questioned whether either of Yaretzi’s statements while using the ability was true or not. I knew that what he was saying was true, even if it seemed absurd. This was especially evident when he claimed to donate half his salary to a wounded children’s fund. I knew that was true, even though it was diametrically opposed to who I believed Yaretzi to be.

Maybe it was somehow nefarious, or he actually had some genuine concern for the kids that the fund helped, but I expected he made the donations for the sole purpose of using it as a trump card with his ability. Telling his foe about more of the awful shit he’d done wouldn’t change their opinion much. Once their opinion of the Littan couldn’t go any lower, he hit them with the ultimate move of “I selflessly help kids in need!” There’s no way I would have believed that under normal circumstances, and I didn’t see how it would have made him vulnerable.

Either way, thinking deeply about the experience allowed me to glean some familiarity with how the ability had worked. It was a Divine spell, but Divine magic could manifest in ways that acted like any other school of magic to a limited degree. The ability touched on the soul like a Spiritual skill. Spiritual wasn’t a school that I had access to with my Dimensional attunement, but my Reveal ability was a god-given cheat that provided me with Spiritual capabilities regardless. It wouldn’t be easy, like reconstructing an entire person from the feel of their hand brushing against your back, but it was somewhere to start.

This gave me some model on which to build my capacity as a truthsayer, but I wasn’t sure about how to become a truthseer. My half-awake mind chuckled internally as I realized that my attempt at designing an analytic ability for the See ability had somehow resulted in understanding how I might develop one for Reveal instead, but that was par for the course. I was an orderly man who enjoyed doing things in sequence… until I didn’t.

Rather than feel irritated at the circuitous route my mind liked to take through contemplative topics, I instead channeled my inner Grotto and affirmed that, when I chose to follow a different sequence, it was only because it was obviously the superior choice. My incredible intellect intuitively understood the best path to the knowledge I sought, which was a natural talent that I’d cultivated with countless hours of fruitful daydreams.

Daydreams that finally turned into regular dreams. I drifted off to sleep, transforming into a flailing octopus bent on world-spanning domination.

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