[week 2] [backdated to day 318] Gonna wash that man right out of your brain

[fearinahandfulof]

This... may not be useful given how many there are, but psychic healing works on the cultists, at least enough to make them realize their minds have been tampered with. I think removing the tampering would also be possible, but it would take longer - a few days, probably.

The cultist - ex-cultist - I talked to spoke with the Calculator Council about it, and Ghalib. They're... alarmed.

Comments

[levelthreehooligan]

Interesting. I may have my hands full with another patient, but I can always take a look if you point people out to me.

And Alarm should be the correct emotion when dealing with cultists, is it not?

[fearinahandfulof]

Is that the injured Katador?

I... suppose? I don't think we had any where I come from, but I might just have not known of them.

[levelthreehooligan]

Aye. From what I can see she needs some intensive care.

There are fanatics everywhere if you know where to look for them. A Shared obsession and intentional rejection of the current reality can make people very dangerous. We had to, ah... dispatch a fair few back home.

[fearinahandfulof]

I can help with that, if need be.

I didn't spend a lot of time around the human settlements, so I don't know. I don't think the Awakened Beings ever grouped together in that way, but the situation on our island favored them greatly, so they didn't need to deny reality in that way.

[Well, Priscilla had, but a cultist she was not. People tended not to survive encounters with her.]

[levelthreehooligan]

Hopefully it won't have to come to that, I would rather not spill blood 'less we absolutely must.

You tend to see them form around beings of great power and influence, and generally speaking they aren't good news.
I have met few with good intentions.

[fearinahandfulof]

I think the closest we had to beings of great power and influence were the Abyssals, and of the old ones there were only three. One preferred to be alone, one targeted my kind in hopes of making allies of us, and the oldest had only other Awakened Beings as foot-soldiers. And then he sent them all off to die anyway, because they were no longer convenient to him.

[And that act had come back to bite him back hard... literally. But that's neither here nor there, is it?]

I hope it doesn't come to that, too. Ghalib's victims are just that, and I don't think anyone else here would appreciate us turning our blades on their fellows.

[forcechanic]

I can help, if we have particular people we want to try to spring.

[fearinahandfulof]

The main difficulty would be convincing them, I think; the only reason I could help this one was because he attacked me and then lost consciousness when I threw him away from me.

[There's a short pause.]

I... healed the injury, too.

[forcechanic]

That's good.

We can find ways to distract them so there's no injury, probably.

[fearinahandfulof]

The process of revealing what was done to them takes about an hour, less if you're better at psychic healing. Reversing it outright would take much longer, although at least they wouldn't be fighting that. [Probably, anyway.] He wanted to see if the Council could figure out a way to fix the tampering based on what they could figure out from him, because healing that sort of psychic damage isn't a skill they naturally have here.

[forcechanic]

That's probably a good plan no matter what. How many of them are there?

[fearinahandfulof]

[There's a pause.]

He told the Council there were just under four hundred. I don't think we'd have time to heal them all without more help.

[forcechanic]

Kriff.

Yeah, I can get some key figures out but we'll need more of a strategy than that.

[fearinahandfulof]

I think Dreampushing might speed the process, at least in terms of numbers, but Dreampushing is also how they got this way.

[forcechanic]

That's the tricky thing with the local psychics.

Maybe there's a way to modify it...

[fearinahandfulof]

How do you mean?

[forcechanic]

If we can figure out how exactly our psychic healing is interacting with people's minds, we might be able to teach them how to touch the same things with their abilities.

[fearinahandfulof]

[Cassandra thinks for a moment.]

I know that for us, psychic healing stems from psychic protection. But they don't really have an analogue for that - most of their psychic abilities seem to stem from sharing their power, not shielding themselves from each other... or maybe I'm misunderstanding your point?

[forcechanic]

Sharing... it reminds me more of the Force, when you say it that way. If we can share the idea of an undamaged psyche... but we need to find a way to stop them from sharing back.

[fearinahandfulof]

The Force?

[forcechanic]

Something from my own universe. It's why I always had a bit of an edge learning the network, but it's more empathy than telepathy.

And just like here, it's just kinda... always there.

[fearinahandfulof]

Can you do things like healing with it?

[forcechanic]

It's not a technique I have a lot of training in, but it's possible. Suddenly I wish Master Cilgahl was here.

[fearinahandfulof]

Master... Cilgahl?

[forcechanic]

The best healer in the Order.


[If she's going to wish for people they might as well be the best]

It's not a human name.

[fearinahandfulof]

Oh.

[Though by now, Cassandra's met enough nonhumans that that fact isn't as notable as it could be. And of course her own humanity is... debatable.]

Do you know how healing would work in theory?

[forcechanic]

Guiding everything back to the state it should be in. A lot of it involves nudging along natural processes.

[fearinahandfulof]

So it's not dissimilar, aside from the power used...?

[forcechanic]

Yeah, that's why I always took to all the psychic things so easily. I already spoke the language.