"Not really. The range is line of sight and it's blocked by barriers thicker than cloth. But it allows me to distinguish between and recognize minds, so it would be useful if I was in a dungeon that had illusory humans. Any mind I detect with it is a valid target for my movement control.

You said your power was conjuring the desires of other people. What does that mean?"

"It means what it says. You think a thing, I can make it happen." Okay, it's a little more detailed than that, but come on—this version is sexier. "I can't use my own thoughts to do it, but if you want something bad enough, I can cause it to appear."

Wow! "Is it matter conjuration? Or just illusion? That's such a versatile power!" It also implies he can do mindreading, which is. Yeah. It's kind of sad that he doesn't have any mindreading capacity but he's also a little happy because he knows he would be soooo tempted to use it all the time to navigate social situations and such and probably die of backlash.

If he had said any of that aloud, Misha would be forced to agree. Massively tempting. "It's just an illusion, sadly. Can't do anything to you except look really fucking convincing. That's usually enough, though. Even dungeon monsters will respect it, often."

It would be so interesting to see Misha use the power but...he is backlashed, and also Lawrence would rather not have Misha read his mind to find out what his desires are.

"I'd imagine so. My power has no visual component.

My plan was to try to find a partner before the confluence and then aim to do a dungeon once every other day. So that I have time to think about things I could have done better and prepare for the dungeon on the next day. I don't want to...rush quickly into trying to clear as many dungeons as possible, because I've had less than a month of training and experience total." He has heard about the saying that dungeon espers don't live past fifty...he knows that number is extremely confounded by the fact that espers only started appearing in the 80s and people had no idea what they were doing back then. So the death rate for espers at the time was super high. Still, that doesn't make dungeoneering not dangerous.

Ah, fool, he was already kicking about in there.

"Yeah, this confluence thing screwed up a lot of plans." A lot of plans. "I wouldn't be here without a partner either, if I had my way. But, hey, meeting new people is cool, at least."

Yeah, what is the story about that? Ukraine is...far...from Korea. Why move here? Was Quasar especially looking for an esper with his skillset and paid him lots of money to come here? Asking about backstories seems potentially fraught, though. The lack of partner seems suggestive.

"It is."

He sort of wants to try lying down on the couch together or cuddling or something like that...but...it's kind of awkward...

Thankfully, reading costs nothing. Well, almost nothing. Nothing compared to the amount of backlash involved in faking fluency in a foreign language!

"I know we were supposed to be here for Korean, but we can practice in a room, if you want to find one."

"Yes," he says, and summons a commscreen. Commscreens are cool! He looks for a silo they can get into using the Quasar HQ map.

"This way," he says, leading, still holding onto Misha's hand.

…Aww, he’s so enthusiastic. Now Misha has to be good. Luckily the guiding is helping keep the little impulsivity demons in his head at bay, especially since he had very carefully avoided using his powers for—well, it had only been…a day and a half, actually.

Having only yourself for company in your head makes for very long days, okay? A little free language assist earlier, as a treat, is totally reasonable given how good he has been and how badly he needs to impress potential partners.

He follows Lawrence. “How did you get the little map to show up? I can never make it give me the room labels.”

He can show him! There are settings for the map app. Also you can change the system language from Korean to English — he has them in Korean now but he used to have them in English.

They will reach the silo without issue, with Lawrence's successful navigation.

"We never had anything this cool in Vladi—Volodymyr. Where I was stationed. Before." He'd always made fun of the Arkhangelsk O thing but now it would be super useful for faking Ukrainian. Karma. Or something.

The silo is one of the generic ones, but that doesn't make it any less well appointed. Ha Si-yeon's was nicer, for sure, but, "They sure have great digs here, don't they?" There's a big old bed available but he elects to play it slow and flops on the couch, pulling his shirt off. "Come sit. You can keep your shirt on if you want. It's just easier without it."

He is being so good today. Not even one taunt about cowardice or the like!

Stationed? Hm, maybe they don't have good teleport capacity in Eastern Europe and that's why it's like that. Korea has Min Woo-young — Quasar has batteries for his power and they sell the teleport capacity to many buyers. And America has Vera Ablinger.

Lawrence thinks the silos are great but it's not like he's experienced any other guild's silos before, so.

Lawrence looks at Misha...it is a truism known to everyone that espers are hot. It's different to be met with this reality face-to-face. He has the urge to do his tic of pulling in his lips, but he suppresses it. His PR trainer, Kyong Shin-Il, is trying to get him to stop the habit.

He is going to carefully remove his shirt and put it up on a hanger in the closet so it doesn't get wrinkled. If one wanted to describe Lawrence's physique, one might reach for 'nubile ephebe'. Or, less pretentiously, 'twink'. He is thin — indeed, his hips are wider than his waist — and he is entirely hairless from the neck down. Skin totally smooth with nothing on it. Prominent collarbone and lightly defined muscles.

He will sit beside Misha as instructed, knees together with his hands on them.

Misha ended up getting "swimmer" as his body type, with broad pecs and a natural A-frame, though biased thinner. He wasn't usually the biggest guy around, though next to Lawrence he suddenly felt enormous.

Kinda like how he felt with Ha Si-yeon. Man, is with all these cute pretty boys? Maybe the West isn't so bad.

"Okay, so step one is relax, man. We're here to be cuddly, so like, go ahead and lean on me if you want. But either way, I'm not going to bite, you don't need to tiptoe around."