"Priestesses can perform rituals which call down miracles. They are subtle, but definitely real. The most basic ones include disinfection, repelling monsters, and enhanced empathy. It is the one branch of magic I'm not very good at since I only have mild affinity for a few of the gods. Money tends to be interesting to priestesses. As does the chance to do good works."

Of course they're subtle! Probably only the pure in faith can see them. Lacking empathy is a sin and no-one would say they still lack it after a priestess blesses them to have some more. And if they're still infected or eaten by monsters they must have been extra sinful and it was the will of god. ...of the gods, here. 

They may or may not practice their own branch of magic, and there may even be a being or beings empowering them with it, but enhanced empathy? As a spell, and with a lasting effect? It is to laugh...

...or not. Wasn't there research on neurotransmitters in charge of friendliness and happiness and stuff like that, back in her first world? Tanya isn't at all clear on how the magically-induced stimulants of Earth-2 relate to the psychoactive drugs of Earth-1, but it is disturbingly plausible for someone to have invented a spell that produces the right chemicals directly in someone's brain adversarially. With enough knowledge - or with enough unethical experimentation - almost anything might be possible!!! Making someone treat you as a friend or fall in love with you (or conversely become paranoic or something) might be only the tip of the iceberg, here! Tanya has a healthy respect for the things which science says are at all possible, even if they have never been done in practice before and even if it would be extremely inconvenient if they were.

She doesn't want to offend or annoy Sinnah but she has to make some things clear. "I don't want any magic to affect my mind, and I won't go near people if there's even a very small chance they might do that." And if someone tries casting unfamiliar magic on her without her approval, she will retreat at seven gees and also kill them dead.

"..........So, there's a problem with that. Known defenses against mind affecting magic are all reactive, not proactive or passive. I've spent some time on the subject and the best I came up with is a triggered casting of Mind Purge built into an artifact- That being a classification of unusually complex magical devices in local parlance, not the other meaning of expensive historical treasure."

"Is nonconsensual mind-affecting magic common here?" If it's at all possible and useful it would be extremely hard to prevent proliferation, and widespread use would itself not just break laws but affect how law-abiding people are, it would unravel the social contract - "in what situations would I be at risk, who are the likely offenders and what would they try to do?" Tanya still processing the enormity of this. She'd know if this happened because she'd sense the magic - unless there is magic that takes effect outside her body and influences her with, what, pheromones - nobody has cast any magic very close to her except Sinnah and she is in her magical research laboratory and - she was happily helping her, is she normally this helpful, this turns out to be a really hard question to answer?!

...Tanya speeds up.

Oh shit. 

She twists her tail in the right way to pull a chain which sets the reactiveness levels on her shields to high, mostly reflexively.

"It's not common. It's not entirely unheard of, however, and relative rarity may depend on one's definition of 'mind affecting'. A hearty meal affects the mind, and so does pain, for example. The most likely thing to affect you would be miscasts. Failed magic casting in the Tirran wizardry style tended to have injurious and lethal results long ago due to being random releases of energy, until someone whose name is forgotten or possibly the light gods created a self-perpetuating magical field that absorbs miscasted magic and converts it to less harmful effects, mostly temporary physical arousal or hyperactivity. -It's a work of sheer genius and art and I hope to one day have a full understanding of it, but regardless. It is considered quite rude to cast strong magic where a potential miscast could affect many people. The other likely things will be group or location based blessings, the charm ability some kitsunes have, bardic style wild gifts or witchcraft produced items, and the abilities of Cryptids - the most intelligent and dangerous sort of monster. Do you want to go buy a casting of Mind Purge from someone I can't possibly be in cahoots with. It'll be expensive."

Tanya has only Sinnah's word for what Mind Purge does (in fact she doesn't have even that yet) or for who she could be in cahoots with here in her city, or that the language spell Tanya would be using to talk to those people is working correctly and cannot, for example, modify some things Tanya says and hears if Sinnah wants it to. 

Some degree of trust is required to function in society. Sinnah could poisoned her through entirely nonmagical means; if a spell can induce 'empathy' then so can a chemical. It is not rational to respond to Sinnah mentioning a novel danger by suspecting her of being that danger. But how should Tanya calibrate her level of trust towards strangers in a completely new world with unknown dangers and unfamiliar social structures?

Tanya can't read minds, she can only talk to people. If she flies around quickly and asks a lot of random people in different cities and they all agree on something, without giving them a way to coordinate, they might be mistaken but they won't be lying. But would random people really know about what spells can do? Would she trust an informal poll subject to church propaganda about the abilities of 'empathy magic' over the word of a professional magic researcher? Not if she had any trust in the expert, which is rather the problem here! Sinnah might have biases and misconceptions about the local church, but random strangers aren't going to be any better. Tanya could... go back to that Baron, she supposes, or find the local equivalent, but if the authorities were going to tell strangers 'don't trust Sinnah, she enchants people' then they'd have arrested her already! 

"I have no specific reason to mistrust you, or to trust any particular person's word over yours. Including about what Mind Purge does, or that that's what I'm buying. So I am going to trust you," because a society where a respected (?) person whom she met at random (??) immediately plots to enslave Tanya with an 'altruism spell' is not a society where she can function regardless.

"Of course physical effects affect the mind! This 'altruism magic' and the other things you mentioned are a novel attack vector for me, and I need to learn how to defend against them. The danger is my mind being subverted, not whether the means is a spell. Categorical defense or immunity is rarely possible, against any attack, but there must be defense strategies that make successful attacks rare? If I have to make it a rule not to let any unfamiliar magic target me I won't be able to go out in public!"

"Altriuism magic? What's that supposed to be? The light god blessings? I suppose you could phrase it like that... My strategy is optimized against kitsune charm, bardic gift, and cryptid mental effects. A combination of detection and triggered Mind Purge. It uses a past watch of average mental states over the last week and then identifies significant deviations from that standard and adjusts the mind to remove them, though that is painfully oversimplified. It's really more like five simultaneous processes given the safeties... Could perhaps optimize it to reduce the rare short term memory loss side effect..." She starts drifting towards a blackboard.

That sounds very complicated and also the side effect is concerning, if not nearly as much as the problem being solved! "Could you give me an overview first of - who can, and who or when is likely to do any of these; how they could be recognized, other than me learning to recognize the spell signature; what the range or other restrictions are; whether they're at all legal or, uh, accepted by society, should I model them as something other than a deliberate act of hostility no better than firing a gun at me? And - how common they are and what do other people do about it, since they do not have your custom reactive spell? I am very grateful for the implied offer to share it, I'm just still trying to correctly understand the scope and nature of the threat. How many people are going around having been unconsensually mentally modified, and in what circumstances?"

"Monster mental magic is too variable to easily categorize. That's half of what makes Cryptids so dangerous, the unknown. Kitsune charm is instant, range about a thousand feet, lasts hours to days, makes you interested in the kitsune. Pretty sketchy. Lands differently on different people. Yeah, if you think a kitsune charmed you it's really valid to be mad. Maybe even to try to kill 'em. Some of my conspecifics are real bitches... Hmm... The whole loop rests on Zhuji's gestalt pattern... But what if..."

She is sketching out a flow diagram on the blackboard now.

Wait. "You are a kitsune? Could you please explain what that means?"

Siiiigh. She is still staring at the blackboard, but no longer writing things on it.

"It means I have all of the standard kitsune traits and a set of nonstandard kitsune traits. The most relevant universal ones being that I was made this way by Goddess Tamamo (probably from a human soul but really the shape of the soul is mostly the same no matter what body it's in) at some point in the past, that I can cross into the spirit world which is an abstract pseudo-alternate dimension supported by magic, that I don't age or scar or accumulate chronic damage from most things, will reincarnate with more of my memories intact than usual faster than usual, that I can natively sense monsters, that sex is a magical power source for me, that I can transform into a fox but neither fox nor humanoid body is quite physically real. Charm is a nonstandard trait. Not every kitsune has it."

She conspicuously didn't deny having the 'nonstandard' charm trait. Tanya sympathizes; there's no need to say unpleasant things out loud. She is intimately familiar with reincarnated into the wrong kind of body by a self-proclaimed god!

"I'm very sorry that happened to you," she says and means it. "I have - some knowledge of beings calling themselves gods which control the cycle of reincarnation." At least she is now in a world where she can apparently admit that out loud and not be laughed out of the room! "I did not mean to pry."

"Harsh feelings about your body and soul having stuff you didn't approve of grafted to it, while entirely valid and justified, are something I do not find useful. I have discarded them and am living my best life as a magic researcher and wandering spellcaster. I have a friend who is closer to your viewpoint on that front - the reason I made my mind purge defense was actually for her, one that I don't have to personally maintain every day is staggeringly expensive because of all the diamonds and it's not even ready but it was going to be a gift- Anyway, that's only very questionably relevant, you might like her was the thought."

Tanya nods. This is an attitude she can whole-heartedly get behind.

"I agree entirely. In my case the being in question let my keep my memories, which does not normally happen on my world, to let me be aware of his 'punishment' in placing me in a poor situation. There is no reason to keep feeling sorry for myself, because, as with you, he has not succeeded." Fuck you, Being X, you don't get to control my life, which means you don't get to make me keep feeling bad about myself. Being able to casually talk about this feels so liberating. "...I think you wanted to work on a technical problem for a while? If so, don't let me distract you." Tanya doesn't feel urgently pressured to find a way to escape mind control anymore, now that she knows she's in the company of someone who probably hates it as much as she does and for the same reasons.

"-No, I'm getting low on internal energy*, I was going to go fix that. Now I'm wondering if you can learn Tirran style wizardry. But, later. We should plan when to meet again."

'Qi', an oddly familiar word, but with different connotations.

"If we're staying here for a while, I should sync to the local timezone and not sleep yet. When do you expect to be back? And could you recommend me someone to talk to, or some books to read, to learn more about this world in the meanwhile?"

"This place isn't really suitable for long-term habitation by two people. I don't have a kitchen. I'll probably be back by six bells. That's a couple hours before sunset. You're free to read any books in here you can physically access without breaking anything, but they are about magic, not general knowledge. Going to travellers' houses and paying a consulting fee for general information might be a good plan. That's a standard service they offer. Many libraries offer research assistance for a fee as well."

"Are there books or guides oriented to people from other worlds? - I assume not but since you've ever had such visitors before, I thought I might as well ask. Lacking that, I'll ask for general overviews. ...Would it be problematic to tell people I'm from another world, if it comes up and I can't explain something any other way?"

"People believe that people who go into adventures or business with otherworlders tend to do well. This may have annoying or beneficial social effects due to the perceived incentives. I'm not you and have never pretended to be an otherworlder so I'm not entirely sure if this is problematic or not."

"That doesn't sound problematic to me but maybe I'll learn from experience. Can you give me some spending money for now?" Being paid for being a teacher is great and Tanya will need to draw up a more careful agreement (money in hand versus rift research, if she can even afford meaningful amounts of the latter) but she gets the sense that Sinnah would rather do that when they reconvene.

Sure, here's whatever her hand in a certain pocket turns out. This turns out to be five gold coins and eight silver ones.

"Five sol eight ecu. My consulting casting rate is two sol an hour but I massively overcharge so people don't bother me unless it's really critical and discount for interesting problems. I'd say a more reasonable specialist respected teaching role's pay would be... Two to four ecu an hour?"

Oh, so they are negotiating now? Tanya mentally comes to attention. "I am not familiar with prices here," she says apologetically, "so if you don't mind, I will trust to your judgement of what would be a fair price for the first few days until I have oriented enough to agree to a longer-term contract. If, that is, you estimate that it will take a long time for you to learn all you can about my style of magic."

It's possible that Sinnah will learn all she can from Tanya over the next few days and she should be pricing this as a package deal, but it seems unlikely and if it does happen, Tanya can probably sell the same knowledge to other people. ...unless Sinnah republishes it first in an article oriented towards locals. Tanya shouldn't give away her most important economic asset on her first day in a new world! It may be the case that neither of them has a good estimate of how long it would take, in which case they should set a floor price. Tanya can raise those things when she comes back; figuring out the approximate cost of life shouldn't take her that long.

"Should I use this time to look for lodgings as well? I'm not sure what the - threat model is here. Do you think there is a serious danger of someone hearing about a new traveler from another world with novel magic and trying to charm or kidnap me in my sleep?"

"I'm not that strict about the money, but sure. Four ecu an hour. Any extra you take from me now can be an advance or an interest free loan, I'm not going to write up a contract about it. I don't care if you sleep here - though I only have one bed - or elsewhere. I have all sorts of wards on the walls and doors and windows so it might be safer but it's also my space and that might be annoying for one or both of us. Risk of someone trying charm... Gut feeling says about one in a hundred if you make a big splash. Of kidnapping, about the same, probably. Maybe one in fifty. I've been under charm to test mind purge and the subjective experience was that the charmer was very interesting, very pretty, and attention-grabbing. Have you ever listened to a really good concert or similar, or gotten into a flow state about work? Gotten lost in a book? The subjective experience was a bit like that, but for intimacy - talking or carnal - with them. Very moment to moment compelling and easy. It wasn't impossible to think around and I could notice when I had been charmed even when they did not specifically warn me ahead of time, but perhaps only because I was keenly aware of the possibility."

"That sounds frankly terrifying." Tanya does not want a one in a hundred chance of that! A one in a hundred chance kills you in two to three months! "I don't know if I have or will make a big splash; I certainly don't want to, but anyone can see I'm a foreigner and any mage can see that I'm using some novel magic." (Which she isn't turning off; that would make her almost defenseless even when she's not sleeping, and every mage in town could have sensed her flying in earlier.) There's no sense in advertising herself, but anyone who wants to will be able to track her down.

Tanya is very grateful for people like Sinnah who volunteered to be mentally infected in order to develop defenses against it."

"Do you think I would be able to sense this as magic being used on me? My magic detection locates magical effects in space, but I don't know if the local mind-affecting spells would apply magic directly to my brain or - do something else. I could tell that your language magic earlier affected me. And yes, I would appreciate sleeping here at least for a night or two, if you don't mind. I am sorry to impose but - I don't know how to defend myself yet, when I'm sleeping." 'Yet' is very optimistic but hopefully there's some solution to be found? 

"...I am unsure. Judging by how you react to things I think your magical detection is better along some dimensions than mine, but I cannot detect charm as magic even with tools, my defensive artifact detects the effects of charm upon the brain, among other things."