K’brin: Chapter 5, Journal 5 – The Restless Dark
- After much debate, Mountain View was chosen as the site for all of the crafters necessary for Faranth’s Wing upcoming mission. It was isolated, easy to watch from Ista Weyr, and the nearest visualization point was Ista Weyr itself – meaning that we control its airspace.
- I asked Masterminer Magnus to check Minecraft Hall’s stocks for any Phrenium masquerading as Sapphire, now that we knew what to look for.
- I also spoke with G’mar about B’dir accompanying Faranth’s Wing to the Old World, but the Weyrleader insisted that they needed him flying Thread and dealing with issues for Ista Weyr.
- I took Master Karthen, T’ria, and Gil to Old Ruatha Hold to test our Talents. We brought torches, not just Glows, because flames frighten and confuse tunnel snakes. We saw few signs of habitation as we entered the long-abandoned Hold, though, other than a few bird nests.
- Old Ruatha Hold’s architecture was unlike anything we had seen before. Our Ancestors must have lost their digging machines by the time this Hold was founded, since it followed the natural flow of the stone instead of cutting through it. It was still very orderly, though, with related things tightly clustered together. There was some ornamentation, such as false columns in the entryway, texture in the ceilings to help with echoes, and false tiles cut into the floor to help with traction.
- The bathing pools and necessary still worked, but the flow was erratic; Gil explained that this meant the aquifer feeding them was probably partially collapsed. The kitchen area was mostly collapsed, but we did spot a kiln-style clay oven similar to the one we had found in East Isle Hold.
- The unnatural sense of fear T’ria and I had felt the last time we visited this place was much easier to manage this time. As a trained Talent, I could tell that it was constant and unchanging – not like real emotions at all. This made it easier to tune out.
- Master Karthen explained that some of what we had been taught about the Place Where People Glow is wrong. It’s not a place at all. It’s a perception. Always remember that.
- Mental activity is perceived as a glow. This is why Talents glow brightly, drudges glow very little, and tunnel snakes not at all.
- Talents can push their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions further away from their bodies. It still originates there, but goes somewhere else.
- When you become Mind Lost, your perceptions become fixed somewhere else and you have a hard time re-centering them on your body.
- A Talent who has moved their perception elsewhere can be followed back to their body by another skilled Talent. This is because we’re really just extending a mental arm/appendage, not truly casting our mind elsewhere.
- Tips for preventing Mind Loss:
- Don’t panic.
- Don’t wander around blindly; you’ll just get more and more lost.
- Strong emotions, especially negative ones, can make it more difficult to focus your mind and find your way back.
- Stay calm and focused at all times.
- Some dragonriders become Mind Lost when their Dragon dies because it feels like their Dragon is still there, but it isn’t really. So they keep trying to project their mind somewhere that doesn’t exist anymore.
- Karthen had us join in The Place Where People Glow, where the emotional echo of fear looked like a glassy wave of flowing water – a slow-moving translucent river of fear.
- Master Karthen and T’ria looked like floating balls of ghostly energy. Only I could speak in words there, probably due to Senesta’s training; T’ria and Karthen communicated with feelings and urges.
- We followed the river of emotion deeper into the Hold, through partially collapsed tunnels and chambers, to a natural-looking pillar of stone embedded with a thousand thousand tiny fragments of Phrenium. The emotion wasn’t just embedded in the shattered Phrenium artifact, though; it was also embedded in the granite surrounding it.
- After studying the sundered artifact for a while, we wordlessly agreed to replace the sense of fear with one of complete, abject pointlessness. We pushed our emotions toward it and, very gradually, they sank in – replacing the strong sense of fear that had been there with a weaker one of pointlessness. It worked!
- Later, Master Karthen experimented with the Ring of Voices. He could sense the presence of dragons but not hear their voices. He was, however, able to hear the minds of fishermen on two fishing trawlers miles and miles away – a feat made even more impressive by the fact that they were not just far away but also in motion.
- T’ria experimented with the Ring of Voices and was able to hear Selenath and Valenth’s voices for the first time. She was much better at perceiving minds than Master Karthen or myself, and could hear the thoughts of the fishermen as well as sense firelizards further up and down the coastline.
- T’ria briefly tried to share Selenath’s vision and hearing but was quickly overwhelmed, since Selenath can see in almost all directions at once. Sharing her dragon’s perceptions directly for only a few moments gave her a splitting headache that lasted the rest of the day.
- Master Karthen then took the Ring of Voices back and tried working with Gil. He was able to speak directly with him, mind-to-mind, and share his perceptions. He said this was very strange, though, because he couldn’t control where Gil looked – and because it was hard prioritizing things, since everything looked equally important through someone else’s eyes.
- T’ria wanted to try farcasting her mind all the way back to Ista Weyr, but I suggested instead that she try from Mountain View first – and work her way up from there.
