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Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.
Isabella summons Cam
kaolinandbone
"I'll try it at full power, then."
Isabella draws herself up to her full height, squares her shoulders to Cam, and proclaims: "I, Isabella Katarina Markova, command and compel you to raise your right hand!"
The wave of pressure is much more noticeable now, though it's still just as vague and unfocused.
Isabella draws herself up to her full height, squares her shoulders to Cam, and proclaims: "I, Isabella Katarina Markova, command and compel you to raise your right hand!"
The wave of pressure is much more noticeable now, though it's still just as vague and unfocused.
from_scratch
Cam squints at her. "...Kind of makes me want to take off my glasses, which is kind of unsettling all by itself, but still really blunted and not affecting my hand."
kaolinandbone
Isabella hums.
"At the level that I was using it, vampires have been known to compel entire crowds at once. That never made much sense to me, considering that they would have to make continuous eye contact with fifty people or more... But if there's an underlying effect of 'pay attention to me', suddenly that becomes much more reasonable."
"At the level that I was using it, vampires have been known to compel entire crowds at once. That never made much sense to me, considering that they would have to make continuous eye contact with fifty people or more... But if there's an underlying effect of 'pay attention to me', suddenly that becomes much more reasonable."
from_scratch
"Makes sense. Hmmm, I wonder what the best way is to really securely attach these to my face without looking like I had a run-in with a piercing shop. I guess I could bolt them through my nose. Be uncomfortable if I were going to sleep, but I don't have to do that."
from_scratch
"More visible, I think. Okay, this is gonna suck..." There is a pause, during which his eyes close. A small trickle of blood dribbles down one side of his nose; he makes a tissue to dab at it.
kaolinandbone
"You know, if you had asked before just going ahead and doing it, I might have been of some help to you."
kaolinandbone
Isabella nods.
"Yes. Of the non-vampire type, this time. I didn't learn Old Lupinian on a whim: it was necessary in order to gain access to the best texts on the formation of Memni."
"Yes. Of the non-vampire type, this time. I didn't learn Old Lupinian on a whim: it was necessary in order to gain access to the best texts on the formation of Memni."
kaolinandbone
The girl pauses a moment, closing her eyes.
"Just let me get my thoughts in order..."
She steeples her hands.
"Mm. Best to start at the beginning. Memni are mental tools that emulate the function of physical ones. They are acquired by ritually practicing the action performed with the tool until the physical tool becomes unnecessary. Those who practice for decades with Memni formed from tools that work well together occasionally form Memnodynes, which are 'sets' of mental tools that have... metamorphosed? Congealed? They work together fluidly as one ability, rather than individual tools."
"Just let me get my thoughts in order..."
She steeples her hands.
"Mm. Best to start at the beginning. Memni are mental tools that emulate the function of physical ones. They are acquired by ritually practicing the action performed with the tool until the physical tool becomes unnecessary. Those who practice for decades with Memni formed from tools that work well together occasionally form Memnodynes, which are 'sets' of mental tools that have... metamorphosed? Congealed? They work together fluidly as one ability, rather than individual tools."
from_scratch
"'Cause, I'm immortal, and picking up magic besides demon powers sounds great. What makes a practice 'ritualistic'? Does this require any features that might be exclusive to people from this world?"
kaolinandbone
"I don't believe so. The 'ritual' component is a extended period where you practice a specific action - say, picking up a stone - until you can do it in precisely the same way every time you do it. Once that is achieved, you begin attempting to substitute your will for the last component step - say, drawing the stone up into your palm with your fingers. It's an exercise in extremely precise visualization, more than anything else."
from_scratch
"How do you pick up anaesthesia that way? Inject it into patients on a tremendous number of occasions?"
kaolinandbone
"Yes. I know of no other practicing mages with a true medical Memnodyne. This is not to say that they don't exist, but we're thinly scattered enough that we don't have weekly meetings."
kaolinandbone
"Practically anything that can be sufficiently ritualized. One of the most common and useful ones is to make a Memnos of your own hands, which allows for short-range telekinesis of anything you could normally hold in both hands."
kaolinandbone
"Roughly a year of study to start seeing significant results, and then four more years to manifest your first Memnos, if you do it properly. If you have a particular skill that you're already an expert at, that can sometimes shorten the amount of time spent on an acquisition - but I would not reccommend using one of those to form your first Memnos. Many new students go from a quickly-acquired first Memnos to a much-harder-to-acquire second one, and that causes the vast majority of them to give up due to the disheartening spike in difficulty."