PM to join Defense Against Hypnosis 101

[Kuvarakh]

Fall 50, 512

Kuvarakh stood back from the "Schedule and Messages" board in the main hallway of The Order's new facility. He looked over his announcement critically. 'Perhaps over-critically', he thought as he restrained himself from adjusting its eye-level and straightness for the fifth time. Everyone checked this board at one time or another during the day and he wanted it to be prominent enough to garner appreciable attention without suggesting that it was mandatory.

Also he didn't want to block anyone else' notes, letters or memorandums. Nor did he want to simply write it in on the schedule. Not until he got some takers. He was not going to disrupt the patterns of the day by officially scheduling it, only to sit in an empty room. Once he got a few members interested, he would make adjustments.

He shook his head when he found himself actually considering hypnotizing a few people both as a way of securing a class and as a way of introducing the necessity of the class' purpose. 'You see, if you didn't NEED this class, you wouldn't be here, would you.' Effective perhaps, but hardly ethical.

There would, of course, have to BE demonstrations that would involve mild hypnotic sessions, but he did not believe there would be any need to actually impose any radical thought alterations on anyone. Just enough to demonstrate that a change did occur, so that the tenets of his approach to defense could be given a practical basis.

[Azoto]

Timestamp: Fall 50, 512
Time of Day: Mid Afternoon
Location: Guild of Transcendence - Main hallway

Many times a day Azoto would walk past the guild's noticeboard, after all,
it was located in the main hallway yet many times a day would he ignore
the boring memos and mundane guild news - usually only pausing to scan
the titles before deciding it was of no use to him. However, today
there was an interesting article, it seemed to be a class invitation,
of sorts. I did not seem to formal, nor mandatory. Nevertheless, when
does one not need defense against hypnosis classes?

Certainly it seemed to be an important skill - being able to block
one's mind from attacks. Surely it makes sense to be able to
defend your mentality from Djed like a Warrior can block an arrow.
If someone versed in melee arts must learn to defend their
physical body, it seems appropriate for Djed Wielder to
defend their thoughts, after all, many great fighters are nothing
without their shields; what are we without proper our
way of defending from hypnosis attacks?

Intrigued, Azoto peered forward at the notice board and squinted
to read the text. First he could tell how perfect the notice was,
it was aligned perfectly. Not slanted one way or the next.

Unlike other articles, strewn across the board, taking no care of where
they roamed. The writer's text was excellently spaced - unlike his own;
Which looked more like a spider had escaped from the ink bottle
and ran riot over his parchment rather than resembling any true font.

Azoto scanned over the details of the classes, then, deciding it was the perfect opportunity to get his feet wet in the ocean that was
the Arcane Arts, set off at a brisk pace to the room noted on
the sheet. Stopping at the borderline of the shut door,
Azoto lowered his hood - apparently it was bad manners to
enter someone's room in travel gear - and rapped three times
on the door with his oak walking staff, pausing only to put
a smile to his face, he then crossed the threshold.
"My good sir." Azoto said, before even glancing at whomever was in the room, then politely bowed his head.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh was authorizing a few schedule changes to account for cancellations due to ghostly incursions into the facility's World Magic training and research wing. Spiritism being the necessity it was right now, in answer to this invasion of apparitions, those practitioners had been on call and now a number of make-up sessions needed to be completed.

The door knocked three times. Assuming it was another frightened trainee, afraid to enter the privy chamber unaccompanied, Kuvarakh gave an exasperated grunt and looked up ready to scold the offender.

The recrimination died on his lips with the appearance of the only other Nuit in The Order who was NOT also an Alchemist. His eyes popped wide to see him. He had sort of forgotten about this fellow Nuit, seeing him so rarely with his focus being all in the Personal Magic fields.

"Azoto!" he stumbled in surprise, as a smile lit his face. "What brings you-..." he began, only to drone into an "Aaaahhh..." at the sight one of the flyers regarding the hypnotic defense class he was initiating.

"Excellent! My first student! Are you here to arrange time for the sessions, or are you here to begin right away? I am certainly able to accommodate either circumstance. Don't get your hopes too high, actual teaching is somewhat new to me. It may take me a session or two to get used to it."

Azoto seemed to ponder, for a moment, whether there was any reason to delay beginning. Kuvarakh also pondered an issue that was only just occurring to him. As a student of shielding, It could well be that Azoto already had one of the best defenses one could have against hypnosis. In fact, it struck him as an interesting theory to test, in time. But the purpose of this class was to help develop a defense that did not rely on any counter-djed-craft technique. He would make mention of shielding as a defense eventually, but for now, he wanted to approach this in the sense of the intended victim having no other system of defense.

[Azoto]

Azoto looked up into the office of which he found himself in; and was
greeted with the warm smile of his fellow Nuit, Kuvarakh. It has
to be said that Azoto was, for the time being, quite a private man. And
was not usually seen by most of the Guilds members. Nonetheless,
from what little he had seen of his fellow Mages, they seemed
to be a friendly bunch and Kuvarakh upheld, if not improved
Azoto's thoughts on the matter.

There was a certain aurora about Kuvarakh that somehow made Azoto
relax and stop being so formal. However as his mind stopped racing
and he began to think a bit more - it came to his attention that
he had no idea what would be the actual content in the lessons.

Kuvarakh was seen to be sitting at his desk, apparently working.
When Azoto interrupted him, Kuvarakh knew of why he had came.
"Don't worry, my friend. It will most likely take me a few lessons
to adjust to learning from someone else again - I was never all
that good at it in the first place, if I'm honest, " Azoto said
truthfully, " short attention span, you see.

[Kuvarakh]

"To be equally honest," Kuvarakh grinned, "with hypnosis, I could probably help you with that attention span." he chuckled at the irony. "But in all seriousness, I've only just got the approach that I intend to use settled in my mind." he gestured to a chair for Azoto to make himself comfortable.

"Now, I understand that you practice the discipline of 'shielding'. It's entirely possible that you could be defended by that. But what I am trying to develop is not so much of a counter-magic in place by djed crafters that has to be active, but rather, an awareness of situational threats, and techniques that anyone can use, even those with no djed craft ability at all."

He stood and paced slowly, more as a repetitive gesture to aid concentration, than as a way to vent anxiety. "Not being a practitioner of shielding myself," he stopped for a moment to shrug and roll his eyes at himself, "though I should be, of course, being an alchemist." his eyes popped wide and he turned to face Azoto directly, "Perhaps when we are done here, you could see if you could show me the basics of shielding."

He grimaced suddenly and slapped his forehead, "Uldr's breath! Listen to me sidetrack myself... Where was I? Oh yes, not being a 'shielder' I have no idea how long it takes to construct a shield to block a djed attack, but I think while effective with a warning," he rubbed his eye, "if the hypnotic attack was subtle, it would already be affecting you before you could respond."

He seemed to get more uncomfortably focused on his eye. "Damn the Seals, anyway. The soulmist from all these Spiritists is aggravating my eyes. I may not be an actual ghost, but I think being a Nuit makes me..." realization made him snort with embarrassment. "Well, you're a Nuit, you must know what I mean."

The somewhat puzzled expression on Azoto's face indicated that he did NOT, in fact, know what Kuvarakh meant. "No?" Kuvarakh puzzled, "Maybe I simply have something in my eye." He stepped towards the other Nuit and stooped down, holding his eye lids open. "Do you see anything in my eye?"

Kuvarakh was a bit ashamed of himself for employing this tactic. But this would be lesson one. he had used this tactic before and it had, literally, never failed. But that was only because he had only used it people that had no reason not to trust him. Nor had he ever used it mailciously. Neither was this usage malicious. It was an example of the first of the "Four A's". "Awareness". Followed by "Alert", "Action" and "Analysis".

He knew that, as the newly arrived student, Azoto would be totally trusting him. Which was the very reason why Kuvarakh would probably be able to succeed with this harmless hypnotic attack. It was to serve as an example of what the purpose of the class was: 'Protection when you can't count on magic to protect you.'

The whole point of the first "A": Awareness, was to be 'aware' of signals that might precede an attempted hypnotic attack. In this case, the fact that Kuvarakh, an obviously known hypnotist, was complaining of an irritating effect of some local malaise that should be affecting Azoto too, but was not. And that he was using it to get suspiciously close.

Of course, there was also the fact that, even though Azoto might have considered the slight oddity of this situation, he would probably be hesitant to do something he might be worried would be taken as an aggressive response to a brand new teacher trying to help him.

It was for this reason, and this reason alone, that Kuvarakh felt bad, and when it was resolved, he was, of course, prepared to offer up his most sincere apology. But still, the lesson would be learned. And ultimately, that was the point.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh suppressed his budding sense of guilt, relegating its significance to a point somewhere below "greater good". He leveled his gaze with Azoto, letting the "student" focus on his eyes as he acquired the image of his own reflection in the others' eyes. This was his own unique approach to touching the target's self awareness. He let his djed pressure build outward until his sphere of influence encompassed Azoto's head and mind.

Along with the development of a separate sentience of what lay within the influence of his hypnosis "bubble", there was his focus of the image of himself in Azoto's eyes. He let that image grow in his mind as a controlled displacement slid his conceptual point of view around to reverse his position on the image. It soon overlaid and occupied the true direction of the vision as Azoto saw it.

He then implanted a sense of puzzlement and uncertainty. The image of himself looked with concern as if asking for confirmation of a trouble already mentioned by Azoto. He focused the sense of himself asking if Azoto had 'really forgotten how to create a shield of djed protection?' He did not know if Azoto already had a shield in place or, if so, if it was going to make his current effort a waste of time. Well, it was time to find out.

He backed his contact out of Azoto's subconscious, blinking his eyes a few times and adopting a look of relief. "Oh, there, never mind. Whatever it was, it's gone now. So anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I was wondering if you could be so kind as to form one of your shields. I would very much like to see if it's effective to resist the mentally empowered penetration of djed required for hypnosis. Please, anytime you're ready."

[Azoto]

"Ah sorry..." Azoto had to blink a few times to realize what was going on. "Must have slipped away from you there." Although Nuits do not need sleep, Azoto had been feeling quite exhausted recently, perhaps he had still not grown accustomed to being undead.

"Yes of course." and feeling rather quite stupid Azoto gazed deeply into Kuvarakh's eyes; then set on his goal, used his hands, almost like a brush, to paint himself an invisible barrier as to stop djed. After little more than half a minute Azoto was quite satisfied with the shield he had wove and indeed very anxious yet excited to see what Kuvarakh was to do next. "There."
Azoto finished with a flamboyant swish of his fingers.

It would seem that being away from people for so long, Azoto had forgotten most ways of conduct and how to act. Don't stare blankly at peoples faces
he made a mental note of. He felt like quite an idiot now, perhaps it would take some time to get back to 'normal', for some time now he had been
quite anti-social.

[Kuvarakh]

'???...It didn't work!' Kuvarakh was astounded and dismayed. He went over his attempt again in his mind. He had touched Azoto's mind, he was certain of that. He had inserted the thought, from Azoto's point of view, that he had forgotten how to make a shield. Yet, outside of a bit of a blank stare, Azoto seemed not to be affected by it at all. He had conjured up a shield with no trouble at all.

'He should have had an episode of being unable to remember how!' Kuvarakh puzzled to himself. Then a thought occurred to him. 'No...not necessarily. I never actually implanted the thought that he had actually forgotten. Just that I had been concerned that he had.' He realized he was staring and shook his head.

"I'm terribly sorry, Azoto. It seems we are both slipping. I'm afraid I was a little too subtle for my own good just now. Tell me, while you were day dreaming just now, did you get the sense that I had mentioned a concern that you might have forgotten how to create a shield? I can see quite plainly that you have one up right now. I had intended to cause a temporary effect where you would forget how. I apologize, but my purpose was to show that a proper hypnotic attack would affect you before you could erect your shield as a defense, and then I went and misapplied the tactic." Kuvarakh rolled his eyes at his own ineptitude.

"Well, there is one good side effect. Now that you know what I was going to do, it should stand as 'awareness', which is the first part of the defense process. Go ahead and lower your shield. I am going to make the same attempt. I think you might be able to resist it, due to your subconscious knowledge that it is coming. Now there is a big difference between the level of awareness you possess right now, knowing, without a doubt, that I AM going to make the attempt, and merely suspecting as attempt may be coming, but not knowing exactly where or when it will happen.

"Normally I would describe situations where you have reason to think a attempt might be coming. That is the 'awareness' phase of defense. Like if you have information someone wants, and you notice a stranger staying close to you, you might be 'aware' of an attempt about to be made. Or if you are settling a business arrangement with someone and there are 'partners' present that haven't given much verbal input, but seem very focused nonetheless. You should be 'aware' of a possible attempt. Then you can watch for the actual 'alert'. So drop your shield and we'll see what happens this time."

[Azoto]

"Well then," Azoto exclaimed after Kuvarakh had finished,
"lets give it another shot." Azoto concentrated quite immensely on working backwards on his shield. Beginning to unravel and unfold it strand by strand
until it was completely down.

When he had finished Azoto began preparing himself, consciously being
alert and ready for an attack of the mind. Trying to block any wondering
thoughts, Azoto closed his eyes and waited for a subtle change.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh, again, generated the inner pressure that allowed the outflow of djed. He directed it to engulf Azoto's thoughts and impressions. He knew the Nuit before him was on guard and felt this to be a good test of his own intuition as well as any defensive technique.

He let himself focus on time passing and passed an exaggerated impression of it into Azoto's senses. 'What is he waiting for? Something is wrong.' He let that set for just a moment, then put a spin on it. He brought the focus back to 'defense' and let Azoto's instinctive train of thought slide to his djed shield skill. Putting a twist of uncertainty into his mind he let doubts grow there.

Doubts about why this was taking so long. Doubt becoming the uncertainty that he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. 'What WAS he supposed to be doing? Something about his shield. Uncertainty about his shield.' He focused the uncertainty on inability. Kuvarakh's own inability to generate a djed shield touching Azoto's mind to overlay that sense of inability. To seed the belief, in Azoto's mind, that HE had lost the ability as well, forgotten it.

AS he let his djed pull back, away from his student, he commented, "Well that took quite a bit longer than I thought." to reinforce the original basis of the chain of impressions he had used to convince Azoto that he would be unable to remember how to shield.

He leaned back in his chair, eyeing the Nuit before him. "So, can you raise a shield now, Azoto?"