Sigh. 

Melody sits down at the man's bedside, while one of the other strong male Healers carries Vanyel over, Savil on their heels. It's starting to feel quite crowded. 

:Gemma, take over on keeping him out? I can do it with Mindhealing if I have to but it's more invasive and I want to focus: 

And she turns her Sight on the man's mind. What does the tapestry look like? She won't be able to directly see the compulsions, but she should be able to see ripples where they affect what she can see; according to Savil, they're not subtle. 

The tapestry is - organized, elegant, neatly arranged; clear paths, splitting and joining again, all woven together with great precision, but - it is woven around something, something she can't quite see, no matter how hard she tries. The core threads are - curled, twisted, moving in ways that seem almost three-dimensional, in spite of the pressures that would normally keep it flat, as if there's some other force holding it that way; stable, but it's stable because of ripples she can't see the cause of; secure, because tensions that would otherwise strain it are balanced and held in play by those whose source she cannot see. One ripple is clearly central - almost all the main strands curl around it - but others are more distant, further apart from the main body of the tapestry even when it needs to steer in bizarre directions to avoid touching them.

(Janos continues to be asleep. Gemma does not have much work to do.)

Melody spends a while looking. 

:Van, I...have some concerns about undoing this. He's got a lot of himself built up around the compulsions, I think. I - would prefer to leave the one that's really centered for last, but I don't know what it does - if it's some sort of suicide compulsion then I don't think that it could react to what we're doing while he's asleep but I'm less sure of that than I like: 

:Can we have you or Gemma keep him more deeply under just when I'm ready to snip each one? And then you could back off and let things settle a bit in the meantime:

Vanyel opens his own mage-sight and dives in closer. He's not experienced enough with compulsions to read what they're for just from the magical structure, but he can try to at least get a sense of which ones are being 'supported' by others, in what order, and how best to nibble out pieces one at a time without sending the rest tumbling down and backlashing on the poor man's mind. 

...With a lot of back and forth between all of them, he can eventually pin down which little knot of magic seems to correspond to the central ripple. It...doesn't look larger or more powerful than the others, or like it's particularly a linchpin of the overall structure? 

:Hmm. There's - some sort of cascading effect, here? Or, no, that's not the right word - can I just show you, here...? They're - it's like they're ordered between them, there's a direction-of-flow here. I don't know what that means, I've never seen someone with so many: 

Pause.

:If I had to guess, I think the one you're extra worried about is, uh, seventh, in whatever that ordering means. And this one is first -: 

He pokes it with a tiny tendril of magic, so that Melody can try to pinpoint any ripples in the tapestry and figure out what area it's affecting. 

It looks almost completely unused, actually! If it was used, it would feed directly into the systems of his brain used for setting priorities and planning actions to achieve those priorities.

(Janos actually stirs at that poke, though he does not wake; Priority One has a lot of weight behind it, and even the smallest touch on it affects him, even in his sleep.)

Melody makes a worried sound. :Easy - back off, Vanyel. Gemma, can you settle him again? I want him as deeply unconscious as you can manage: 

:That's not really good for people, you know: Gemma mutters, but does it. The tapestry goes still. 

:Hmm. I'm thinking maybe I could do a Mindhealing trick to - make it less risky that in the process of snipping these, you'll start to trigger them? If I do a really localized block, right here - or, no, hmm, if I do a closed-redirect-loop with some sort of dampening on it so it dies out after a couple of iterations - then I think no matter how hard it pokes him, it shouldn't be able to get anywhere in his mind. And it'll be easy to undo afterward. I do want to get more oriented to this first, though. Do the same thing for number two in the order? Carefully, please, and stop right away if I tell you to: 

Sure. He can find the knot of magic that seems to be just downstream-of the one he poked, and very very gently nudge it. 

(This is nervewracking and Vanyel feels very out of his depth and terrified that he's going to break something, but - it's all right, Melody is here, she can help set it right afterward if anyone can.) 

This one is much, much worse. The pressure isn't as strong, but what's tied to this one is FEAR and DEATH and extremely constrained action planning - though it's as isolated as it can be, connected as it is to somewhere so important.

(He does not stir, though Melody can see perfectly clearly that if it wasn't for Gemma he might sit bolt-upright and scream.)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

:All right. Van, I want this one off first. Maybe right now, if you think you can pull it out from the middle like that. Er, but let me try this loop-redirect thing first -: 

There's a lot flowing from this particular compulsion; the action-planning seems the most dangerous, she'll focus on defanging that, and leave the ripples toward his emotions alone. He's not going to panic and wake up, with Gemma here, and she needs to minimize how much Mindhealing work she does for each compulsion, since there are over a dozen still to go. 

:All right. I think it should be safe. As safe as we can expect, at least: 

Vanyel...is getting the sense that there's a correct way to interact with this whole complicated interwoven system, that there's a way he could pluck out something in the middle without damaging the rest, but does he have the skill or knowledge to do this himself: no, no he does not. 

:Melody, can you block the two on either side as well? Just in case they get destabilized by cutting this one: 

:Sure, I'll block number one, but I don't know what corresponds to the third one: 

Poke? 

The third command does not, when poked, do much! It seems - almost more like a wall than like anything else? An unfortunate place that the fabric couldn't be sewn together over, such that the tapestry needs to flow around and then rejoin on the far side? Melody can see that it interfaces with the brain's conscious thinking and planning procedures, but not what precisely it does with them.

:Hmm. This one seems less concerning, although I'm not sure what it's for. I'm...going to leave it un-pinned for now, I think, just so I can get a sense of how it reacts to number two being taken out:

She readies her Gift to pounce on the man's mind if anything untoward happens. 

:On your go, Van: 

Vanyel takes a deep breath. 

:Now:

And he snips through the little knot of magic that represents the second compulsion in whatever ordering this is. It's not a lot of magic; compulsions are very low-powered, even if he 'drops' it all it shouldn't do too much in the way of direct backlash to either himself or Janos. He's watching very closely for how it affects the rest of the compulsions, though; he doesn't think it'll send the whole structure toppling down, it seems much too well-stabilized for that, but he's not totally sure. 

The backlash is minimal; the compulsion was laid with much more skill than power. And, oddly enough, it seems to... reduce the pressure on the others? Janos's mind relaxes more; Vanyel's sight can see that the tension between the compulsions has reduced, and they're supporting each other even more than they were.

:Huh: Melody's mindvoice is thoughtful. :That....went better than expected. Does it look easier from your point of view to get the first one next or the third one?: 

Vanyel considers this. 

:Third one, I think? There's just a bit less power in it: 

Nod. :I'm actually not sure how to block it downstream - this one already interacts with his mind in a way that looks more like a block than anything else! So I think probably I should just be ready to respond if it does anything weird. But you can go ahead: 

Snip? 

Snip. Nothing weird happens; the odd not-quite-block is down. What his mind might develop into in the future, with it missing, is unknown, but nothing terrible is happening yet.