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Iomedae in the Eastern Empire!
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(Altarrin is not, in fact, intending to use the power to reach Iomedae's world in order to fight them. He wants to know who Aroden really is, and he wants to - that line of thought is not quite finishing but - more options always better, right, and more information is even more broadly always better, and - they don't have to decide, yet, how to use it...) 

 

He leaves her to her work, and writes up a much more carefully-argued report for the supervising facility on why he thinks that reducing the paranoia level on the compulsions is justified. His case is not just that the direct Aroden risk (which was the main out of context risk that justified precautions far tighter than the standard, already-very-cautious ones) is probably not worth worrying about, but that the current most likely out-of-context threat is if Iomedae returns to Velgarth, or - maybe worse - if someone else with fewer principles learns of Velgarth and finds a way to travel there. In which case it predictably goes worse for the Empire if they still don't understand the other world's magic and capabilities, including capabilities not represented by Iomedae's but that can be generalized once the researchers have a good enough understanding of the underlying school of magic. And of course if they can get a scry through to the other world, they can collect intelligence directly, which the Emperor wants very badly. 

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That does seem pretty reasonable! They'll continue their monitoring of everyone in the facility but they won't object to the use of standard sensitive research precautions.  

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And now Altarrin wants to talk to whichever researchers (and test subjects) have been spending the most time with the headband

 

- actually now that they've substantially downgraded the worry about possession by Aroden, he kind of wants to see the headband in action on un-Gifted (and, of course, not otherwise dangerous and definitely otherwise disposable) subjects without such restrictive compulsions. He'd like a Thoughtsenser on hand, and he'll run the subjects through some puzzle-type questions - and other kinds of reasoning - both with and without the headband. 

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Applied to a random un-Gifted on-site cook for the magical researchers, who shows no particularly distinguishing cleverness in the tests without the headband, the headband makes them...as good at puzzle-solving as any bright researcher-student. Articulate, fast to answer, able to reason through some unfamiliar math independently, careful, thoughtful. 

Applied to an un-Gifted on-site research assistant who was already notably bright....this person is now as smart as Altarrin, follows the implications of most of the puzzles immediately, and carries on a thoughtful conversation about it. ...and he does not want it taken off. He'll beg to be allowed to keep it, he thinks he could do quite useful research this way!

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Altarrin feels genuinely bad about that! He would also find it distressing! ...Unfortunately, he needs people who are Gifted, for this, it doesn't change the conclusion. 

- He is going to make the update that perhaps he shouldn't, in fact, offer it to Aritha, or to very many people at all. He...really wanted to study it in more cases before trying it himself, but he also doesn't want to have this interaction twenty times for no reason, and he's worried it might be damaging for someone to wear it briefly and then have it removed. 

 

...is that right, or should he be more paranoid, this - does seem like a worrying side effect, in terms of some kind of influence - maybe he'll carefully vet some of the researchers and pick ones other than Aritha, ones who aren't currently contributing as much, or who otherwise seem - less intensely goal-oriented in their cleverness, maybe less bothered by having it randomly shifted around... 

 

"I understand and I am very sorry. It is currently a highly limited resource. We are working on figuring out how to replicate it, or at least a simpler version." The notes from the researchers' inspections say that it's quite a lot more complicated-looking and powerful than the dagger. "And if we reach the other world, we will of course obtain more if at all possible." 

The un-Gifted research assistant is compulsioned to obey Imperial orders, on top of quite a lot of other compulsions, and will not be able to otherwise resist Altarrin removing it. 

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He has something of a miserable internal existential crisis but not one that his Thoughtsenser judges dangerous to the Empire.

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Altarrin takes the Thoughtsenser with him to contribute their observations in his meeting with the project leads. 

 

The headband is obviously useful. It would be an enormous waste not to use it, and ideally to use it on the people who are already brilliant and already making progress. He...is also worried about the apparent side effects, which the Thoughtsenser can describe in detail. Is there anyone on the mage-researcher team they would recommend, he wants someone already clever but - not natively curious, maybe, or not natively ambitious, or otherwise of a personality type that might be less likely to have an internal existential crisis over having been briefly offered genius and then had it snatched away. 

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Unfortunately curiosity and ambition are mostly positive qualities in mage-researchers. They can point to researchers without those qualities but...not the impressive ones.

 

They could also try enhancing the researchers while they're under very restrictive compulsions again, ones that don't permit them to think about how they feel about the headband? Some of the researchers are notably less productive when heavily restricted but some of them, once they've evaluated a project and are bearing down to work on it, don't need the capacity to contemplate the rest of the world or their individual interests at all.

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He's happy to try on a less-impressive researcher first, whether it makes them more impressive is also a good test. Some compulsions against noticing how the feel about the headband - targeted as narrowly as possible, he'll do them himself since he's more skilled at navigating that - do also seem like a reasonable precaution.

 

What does the headband do to an incurious and generally unimpressive mage-researcher, if he blocks them from having meta-level thoughts about the experience of it, and then points them at analyzing one of the artifacts they haven't seen before and prompts them to make guesses at how it works or how to replicate it? 

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The magical researcher 1) is notably better at magical research and 2) realizes that she never wanted to be a magical researcher, she only did it for her father's approval, and she'll never have her father's approval because he'll always be measuring her against something that only exists in his head, and she should quit her job and leave the horrible capital and the horrible endless projects and do custom Gates for a small merchant company or something.

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This is differently concerning! Altarrin feels bad about it too, this time because - well, in normal times, mage-researchers are allowed to quit their jobs and go do some other work, especially for research it's actually quite impairing if the people doing it are deeply unhappy. But. Being assigned to an extremely sensitive and high-risk project is...different. 

He'll make a note of it to her supervisor, because probably they should let her go retrain as a specialist Gate-mage as soon as it's not an insanely bad idea, and he'll hope she doesn't have a breakdown about the headband being removed too, and - 

 

 

- can the team leads suggest an average researcher, both in terms of output and inclination to curiosity, and this time he'll try the same no-opinions-about-the-headband compulsion and also a carefully-targeted compulsion not to think about their personal lives? 

(He's pretty sure this still leaves a lot of options for things that could go wrong, but - information value.) 

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Thaaat works... better? This person has no earth-shattering revelations and does make some magic-item-identification progress and mostly feels really cheerful and alive while possessed with the headband.

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Doooooo they have any kind of freakout after the headband is removed, though? 

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--oooof, yeah, that sucks, it's like waking up from a dream where everything was amazing and remembering that actually your life really sucks!

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.....Yeah. He'll also make sure someone is assigned to follow up with her, and - what he really wants next is a longer test, to make sure the cleverness isn't illusory and does genuinely result in more progress on the timescale of a day. 

 

He'd like to speak to Aritha again whenever she's next easily interruptible. 

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Aritha is doing great and is at the Archmage-General's service whenever is convenient for him.

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He brings the headband. He's not sure if it's one that she's examined before. 

 

"We have confirmed that this artifact does not cause any kind of possession and does make its wearer much better at research. It - has some side effects, but ones we can mitigate."

With compulsions. Aritha can read between the lines.

"It...is, nonetheless, sometimes distressing to remove, and obviously if we give it to you for this project research, it is the only one in the world right now and you cannot keep it long-term." He lets his lips pull slightly into a smile. "Of course, if you can figure out how to replicate this type of artifact at all, it would be of incredible value to the Empire and you would be more than entitled to the first prototype. But I did want to warn you, first, before offering it to you. You can have it for eight candlemarks, starting after you have just slept for the highest effectiveness." 

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She's not interpreting it as a choice; from Kottras, it wouldn't be. 

She has seen it before. It is the artifact that made it obvious to her that -

 

- she couldn't complete the thought at the time, but she can now - that the civilization that built that is stronger and more prosperous than the Empire; more inventive, more worthy. It will fight the Empire and win and it will be correct for it to win, because it's the stronger civilization. (She is loyal to the Empire, but this means, to her, that she will obey, while the inevitable happens as it obviously will.)

"I understand, Archmage-General."

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He nods, seriously. 

"I expect you will accomplish a great deal." 

- it's still midmorning, he doesn't want to wait until tomorrow morning to go further... 

"Take a couple of candlemarks off," he suggests, gently. "Try to have a nap. And then you can see what it does." 

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She will obey.

 

 

 

And then she'll have a merry eight candlemarks making a lot of progress on Gate-search-targets from this kind of artifact and other kinds of artifacts that can be extrapolated to exist given these ones, and only occasionally having other realizations such as that she is someday going to DIE and this is a SCREAMING EMERGENCY (it is, but enabling contact with the other world is still probably the best way to solve that, so settle down) or that she HATES KOTTRAS ACTUALLY (not a huge deal, he'll be able to fix it later if he doesn't just think it's funny) or that Aroden being the god of the civilization that built this does actually prove that -

- nope not safe or possible to think that sentence all the way through -

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Altarrin is trying to use that time to make some progress of his own on figuring out how to even approach the problem of a search-spell that routes through multiple other planes to find the shortest route, and tells the Thoughtsenser reading Aritha not to interrupt him unless it's actually an emergency.

He'll make his way back a half-candlemark before the end of the time period, so he can pull up notes and quiz her supervisor on her previous rate of progress (on average days and on good days) versus today. And so that he can be there, in person, when he has to take the headband away. 

 

How does she handle it? 

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Expressionlessly, because she doesn't like it when men like seeing her suffer.

 

It doesn't change much. She's the same person, she can think the same thoughts, just - slower. And if that's not totally true, if there are some thoughts that were only reachable in the blazing place the headband takes her, well. Probably someone in charge needs the headband more than her to think those same thoughts so that the Empire can lose gracefully.

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He's grateful for her composure, which he doesn't say. 

He's also grateful for her excellent work, today, which he does say. Not warmly - it wouldn't help, especially not given what the Thoughtsenser is relaying right now - but clearly and concisely and using examples. 

 

(He's separately grateful for the information it gave him, because - he thinks he's more like Aritha than like the others it was tested on, and so, while plausibly there are a lot of unpleasant paths of thought that the headband might send him down, he trusts his ability to redirect toward what's important.

He's also going to make a note to himself that he should really find a way for Aritha not to be under Kottras' command in future. He doesn't know the specifics there but he hardly needs to, and - it's a waste of her obvious talent.) 

 

If Aritha is up for it, he'd like to talk with her a little longer about her next research directions, accounting for the fact that she probably has a lot of headband-related insights that she hasn't yet followed all the way, and will now be harder to follow (but Altarrin is at least a little cleverer even without a headband, and much more experienced with magic, and can give her some suggestions.) 

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She's much more reserved without the compulsions that make her fearless, but she did have a lot of ideas for research directions, and will levelly explain them. For many of them Altarrin has tried that before and has good reason to know it doesn't work, but a few seem actually promising.

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He can point those out to her, and suggest why they're promising! While trying to be calm and level and minimally unpredictable or scary, he doesn't have a perfect sense of what would scare Aritha (separate from 'being Mage-General Altarrin') but he has Thoughtsenser prompting. 

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