She finds a crow, who knows if it's the same one from earlier but that doesn't matter. It's on the edge of a roof.

..Oh huh. She can feel the crow's emotions in a neat little bundle easy to tell from her own emotions.. It seems to be focused on something or searching for something? After a short while it dives off the roof with a surge of satisfaction. Probably it found food. She can't see it anymore but the emotional link is still there. So she doesn't need to be able to see her target the whole time. That's useful to know.

She considers, this doesn't seem super expensive, maybe she can try this other thing, at least for a moment?

...oh wow, that's much more interesting. She can see and hear and feel through the crow's senses (also taste and smell, it did find something to eat, a few shriveled up french fries somebody left a carton.). That is kind of fascinating actually. But it's noticeably more expensive than the empathy...hmm can she drop the emotional component and still keep the sense sharing going. It feels like she can - yep she can totally do that. Also she can stop tasting old French fries while still using the crow's vision.(The fries don't actually taste bad to a crow's tastebuds however the principle of the thing). Also it's hard to tell but it might be slightly cheaper that way..

Actually could she project things? That might be better to test on a person. It seems a little mean to test on an unsuspecting crow. She breaks the link and heads back inside to report. And handhold, since she did pick up a chunk of backlash. Not a very large chunk but definitely noticeable.

Handhold. "How'd it go?"

"Well it was interesting. I can do receptive empathy and sense-reading. I don't have to do both at once and can chose which senses to look at. I think I need to see, or maybe just hear well enough to pinpoint to target but once I've started using it I don't have be able to see the whole time - the crow jumped off the roof into somebody's trash. The senses are more expensive than the empathy but I'm not really sure by how much.

I thought about testing if I can project as well as receive but I thought that I'd rather do something like that with a consenting test subject. Or at least not an innocent crow. Actually if I can share my senses that would be neat.. I could show people all the stuff I can see and hear now. Also if I could project at a monster I might be able to confuse or distract it?"

"That's a very nice powerset there! - do you have to directly see or hear whoever you want to target, or could you form, like, a chain -"

"I don't know but I should test that. I bet I could get a good idea of the layout of a dungeon that way if it works."

"Sensors are in really high demand! Anybody who can sketch a map or point people to victims or give a heads-up about what the boss monster's looking like."

She pulls out her phone and starts making notes "need to test if I can jump from target to target even if I can't see the new target directly, need to test..how far away I can get and still maintain a link with a target...though that might be a matter of scaling cost? Hmm, do you know anyone nearby with a dog who might be willing to...walk it in one direction for a while or something? I could wait for somebody to walk by with their dog  but then they might already be on their way home or just not feel like obliging weird requests from a random stranger."

"I don't know the neighbors well, sorry."

"Any other suggestions then?"

"Could ask Cricket?"

"Sure, if you think he might be game."

"I don't think the question'll offend him, anyway. Kittycat where are you?"

Cricket emerges from on top of a bookshelf. "Yes?"

Excellent, it works on Cricket. She was pretty sure it would but it's useful to have confirmation even if he says no.

"Hi there, 'm doing some powers testing, would you mind if I...look through your eyes while you fly in a straight-ish line?  I wanna see how far away I can maintain the link." She glance at Haru, "I'm not sure how much distance I should be going for here, a few blocks? A kilometre maybe? I'll break off sooner if the backlash starts getting really bad of course."

Back to Cricket, "It's totally fair if you want to say no, or even just do it later if we interrupted a nap or a show or something."

"I was on top of the bookshelf, not in bed. You can look through my eyes if you want."

"I think how long you should keep going will depend on how the backlash accumulates? If you can go miles then that's amazing and you should know about it, though Cricket might not care to demonstrate it today."

"Well I do not plan on letting it get very bad though you should maybe check my judgement on that..."

"I can hold your hand while you do it and warn you if it seems like it's getting too high."

"Yeah thanks. I don't know what 'reasonable' is right now." She holds Haru's hand.

"Okay I'm going to start now, Cricket you can pick any direction you want as long as you keep going in basically the same direction for a while." Grab the visual data without grabbing the rest, what's Cricket's vision even like? 

Cricket can see full color. There's something subtly Cubist about his perception, or maybe he sees through things just a little bit in flickers? - mostly it's like human vision though. He trots through the cat door and takes off with a leap and a few wingbeats and gets altitude and strikes off north.

Oh huh."Cricket's vision is a little bit...trippy. I guess maybe  because he naturally operates in 4D? Now I'm curious what this would be like in 4D..." pause "Also I can totally target my power through somebody else's eyes. I....thiiink I could maintain more than one link at the same time though more than one additional visual feed might get confusing? Also I don't know if the backlash cost would add or multiply or what or if it matters how far away the targets are from each other...we should test this stuff...later."

(the backlash accumulation is increasing  but quite slowly and wasn't very high to begin with)

"I do think you've got headroom if you want to test it now but your call."

"Hmm..." slightly larger spike of backlash "Well, two targets at once definitely works. I don't think I want to test it further right now. I think two was more than twice as expensive  though not by a lot?"

"I concur."

She keeps monitoring Cricket, taking note of landmarks and opens google maps on her phone to cross reference.

After a short while of this the backlash accumulation starts scaling  more sharply, it's not yet dangerously high but it's trending that way.