Taking it all together, it seemed obvious to Zorian that one of the defining powers of a psychic was their ability to make sense of information entering the mind directly — whether it was other people’s thoughts or something more exotic like divination results. The immediately interesting part was that it was a passive skill. Using it wasn’t something he had to specifically activate, it was a state of being, so if he wanted to sense the minds of nearby aranea perhaps he should stop trying to push his power out towards his surroundings and concentrate inward. He took a deep breath, visualized the results as motes of light around him and then just… opened his mind.
Blazing suns erupted all around him, including a couple in places where he hadn’t expected there would be any aranea to begin with. Apparently the matriarch brought more guards with her than she had openly displayed to him.
[Your first success,] the matriarch remarked, her telepathic probe breaking his concentration and causing the entire vision to burst like a dream. [Well done. Things should go a lot faster from now on. I’d congratulate you on your fast progress, but I have to be honest and admit I have no idea how fast humans usually progress in this.]
«Perhaps things would have gone faster if you had actually told me I was doing things wrong,» Zorian said with annoyance. «Why didn’t you tell me I was supposed to concentrate inward instead of outward?»
[I did; it’s not my fault if you dismissed it as pointless aranean superstition,] the matriarch said airily. [And I actually didn’t know that the problem lay there in particular. I suppose my tendency to respond to your thoughts makes you think I can understand them in totality, yes? The truth is less impressive, I’m afraid. Telepaths like you and me labor under many of the same limitations that plague human mind magic, it’s just that we advance much faster in the field and don’t need a structured spell to use our abilities. Unless you structure your thoughts into actual speech, the most I get from you from my surface scans is a very fuzzy image of your current emotional state and your general intentions. This is doubly true because you’re human and I’m an aranea, two radically different species that don’t even share the same general body plan, much less mentality.]
«Huh, so language and species do matter to a psychic,» Zorian remarked. «I was wondering about that.»
[It’s usually not a big problem, since most creatures tend to think in words when they engage in conscious thought,] the matriarch said. [So long as two creatures speak the same language, they can freely engage in telepathic conversation, no matter how different their underlying thoughts. If they don’t share a language… well, admittedly, not all is lost. Psychics can potentially communicate with completely alien minds. It involves structuring your thoughts into general concepts that are hopefully broad enough to be understood by the recipient but not so broad as to be meaningless. Unfortunately, this method is very crude and tends to be both painful and disorienting to the target. I believe you experienced it already when you met one of the less human-savvy araneas in one of the previous restarts.]
«So it’s not just because you’re more powerful that you speak with me so easily?» asked Zorian.
[No. I took the time to learn human language, mentality and culture. As did a number of other aranea that occasionally interact with humans. However, our web is extensive enough that most aranea can remain largely ignorant of human ways while they go on about their business, which is why most of my guards are silent around you. Trust me, they aren’t usually this withdrawn, but if they tried to talk to you they’d just give you a headache.]
«Does that mean that mental attacks are easier than communication?» Zorian asked curiously. «I mean, if botched telepathic communication is practically a mental assault to begin with, it shouldn’t take much to simply fry a creature’s brain and be done with it.»
[It’s called a ‘mind blast’, and it’s the simplest telepathic attack there is,] the matriarch said. [It’s also the simplest one to defend against. You should really stop worrying about me attacking you. Aren’t the explosives you constantly carry in your pocket enough to reassure you?]
«They help,» Zorian said. «But in this particular case I wasn’t alluding to the possibility of hostilities between us. I was just curious.»
[Well, good. Anyway, we should get back to developing your mind sense before we get too off-track,] the matriarch said. [You made your first successful stab at it, but it is far too shaky to be useable at the moment. You need to be able to sense minds around you instantly, without having to sit still with your eyes closed and preferably while doing something else entirely.]
Zorian sighed. He was definitely getting flashbacks to Xvim on this.
The rest of the month was fairly unremarkable and mostly spent on honing the mind sense and trying to sense the intensity of magic sources through a mana cloud. Though the matriarch refused to teach him anything until he got his mind sense (relatively) mastered, he already noticed her lessons gave him some rudimentary control over his empathy — enough that he could keep it shut with enough concentration, but not enough to focus it on specific people or otherwise refine it. That alone made the lessons useful, since it should make social events infinitely more bearable for him.
And speaking of social events, Zach had been increasingly pushy about bringing him to his summer festival party. After the boy kept bugging him a few times, Zorian relented. Yes, it would bring him uncomfortably close to the other time traveler for the evening, but he was curious about how his empathy suppression would fare in a live situation and also how Zach’s mansion looked from the inside. Besides, he was trying to get to know his classmates better, and this was a good opportunity to chat up some of them without looking completely out of character.
«Is it really okay for me to come with you?» Taiven asked as she walked beside him.
«For the last time Taiven, yes. Zach made it clear that the more people we invite along with us the better,» Zorian said. Not surprising if you knew what Zach was trying to achieve. «Look, if you don’t want to come—»
«Oh no, I totally do. It’s not every day you get a chance to attend a party at the Noveda mansion. It’s just that I find it a bit strange, that’s all. I’m kind of surprised you agreed to come, though — isn’t this sort of thing an anathema to you?»
«It’s either this or attending the official dance organized by the academy,» Zorian said. «My only real choice is to pick my poison.»
«Ah, I see,» Taiven nodded. «I guess that in that case this does appear to be a better option.»
Zorian glanced at Taiven from the corner of his eye, feeling slightly guilty. The truth was that his main reason for inviting her along was to personally see how she would fare against the invaders. He knew she was a lot better than him at combat magic, but probably not all that much better, and he wanted a comparison point that wasn’t as ridiculous as Zach or an experienced battlemage like Kyron.
Then again, this was Taiven — she probably ended up fighting the invaders in every restart anyway, just not where he could see her. At least this time she would have the advantage of fighting alongside a combatant of Zach’s caliber.
They barely knocked on the door before Zach came along and ushered them inside. He probably knew they were coming the moment they stepped through the outer gate, now that Zorian thought about it — it would make sense to have some kind of detection field woven into the ward scheme that protected this place.