A Jaded Life

Once I was comfortably sitting down on my new Throne, I let my mind drift into the Astral River, letting its ebb and flow pull and push me hither and yon. I wasn’t trying to go somewhere, I simply let the current take me away from the World Tree, making navigation, the biggest problem on the ever-shifting currents irrelevant. With my Throne acting as a beacon within the Astral River, I would find my way back to my body, no matter what, so I didn’t have to worry about getting lost.

That confidence allowed me to float with the currents, going further than I’d normally dare, beyond the reach of the World Tree and beyond the forest around it. I had no idea where the currents had taken me, only that there was a fair amount of physical distance between my Throne and the location the Astral River had taken me to. But whether that distance would be measured in tens of kilometres, in hundreds or maybe even in thousands, I wasn’t sure. I might have let my mind drift halfway around the world and I wouldn’t know, distances in the Astral could readily shift and warp, making the navigation within such a pain. That the Astral River sill wasn’t settled didn’t help matters, sure, it was less agitated than it had been in the days after the change but that was more akin to the difference between a high-pressure hose and a waterfall, neither could be swum up easily. In a similar vein, correlating a position within the Astral River to a position in the physical world was difficult.

Delving into the Astral River was simple but the further you moved from the position you entered from, the more difficult it became to keep track of things. Previously, I had managed to find the strangely altered sewage treatment plant by delving into the Astral and correlating its influx within the Astral River to directions in the real world but that had only worked thanks to its proximity and magnitude. Similarly, finding the World Tree would be easy as long as I was nearby but the wards, while subtle in the physical world, had quite the effect within the Astral, maybe because the warding was linked with living plants that had their own connection. I wasn’t sure but it was something I would have to look into at some point.

Sadly, what I was trying to do now was a lot more difficult and less straightforward compared to finding a particularly strong enemy. Sure, I would take one of those but my plan wasn’t to look for one, it was almost the opposite. I wanted to find a fairly ordinary foe, nothing that would challenge me if I was close to it, to see how much I could do from afar.

Finding such a foe from within the Astral River was the obvious first step. If I couldn’t even find a target, the rest would be impossible and I’d have to look for my fun elsewhere. But if I managed to find a suitable test subject, I wanted to see if I could glean information from its mind. Further tests were aimed at finding out if the target noticed the intrusion, if they could resist better after noticing and if there were side effects from drawing information from their mind. Some of these might be better to be performed directly, so I could see any complications with my own eyes, but given that I was in a place where I had promised to do no harm, these first tests would have to be done remotely.

If I managed to draw out information from my target, the real fun would start, namely, the question of whether I could accomplish the opposite. Could I project information into the mind of a target and could my targets notice if I did so? Or rather, how much could I project without their notice, if I started to mess with something critical to their fundamental reality or character, they would notice. They might not immediately understand what was going on, but they would notice.

Soon, as I was drifting through the Astral, I noticed a small siphon, just large enough for me to notice. Part of me was curious to find out how much power one had to draw from the Astral River to let me notice their presence, so I tried to lock onto the physical realm around the presence, only to fail. I just couldn’t get a grip on things as I had done while on Mundus, so I couldn’t cast a scrying construct out into the world so I could see.

Still, I had a hold on the Astral, so I wasn’t drifting away and I knew I would be able to learn more if the entity I was observing tried to delve into the Astral, it was the method I had used to commune with the Grandmother while on Mundus. But that sadly didn’t help me, unless there was a reason for the entity to enter the Astral, I might wait for days, weeks or even forever, there were many beings that never consciously entered the Astral River after all. No, if I wanted to learn more, I would have to do something.

Sadly, I couldn’t sense the mind linked to the draw, maybe because my extra-sensory perception of minds was linked to the physical distance between my body and the target or maybe there simply wasn’t a mind there, at least not one bright enough for me to notice. If it was a plant, or an ordinary, if powerful, animal, I wouldn’t be able to notice the mind, or it might have some sort of concealment. There were multiple options and sadly, I had no idea which was the correct one.

But I could experiment some more, I only had to be careful. Using my Soul Sense would be an option but one I was hesitant of, if I pushed even more of myself into the Astral, going beyond pushing my mind into it, I might get stuck, even with my Throne acting as a beacon. And my Soul Sense was dependant on proximity to my actual soul, anchored to my body as it was, it was a major part of how Lady Hecate had taught me how to use it. So, that was out, too.

Instead, I subtly channelled some Mind Magic, letting it drift into the power that was drawn from the Astral River, holding little intent but a small compulsion to stop, to pause. A moment’s hesitation, embedded in a decently sized spark of Astral Power, hopefully, subtle and simple enough to slip through. I wasn’t sure if it would work, or if I would be able to get any feedback but it was worth the try.

The result was… something. There was a tiny change in the power flowing from the Astral River into whatever entity I was observing from afar but just what that change meant, I had no idea. I might have pressed the pause button for the biological processes of some plant, only for them to resume moments later or I might have managed to make some poor animal stumble. Hel, I might even have managed to wake up some poor sod who was just trying to sleep, I had no real idea and wasn’t sure if I could find out.

To get some more information, I tried to vary the commands I embedded into the sparks of Mind Magic I sent into the flow of power to the entity I was observing but sadly, there seemed to be no telling reactions. Roughly the change I observed when I sent the power the first time occurred again, with only minor variations that I could detect but, again, I couldn’t really tell what these variations meant.

So, I decided to try something else and began studying the power that was flowing into the entity. There didn’t seem to be any obvious elemental bias, so I decided to see what would happen if I tried introducing one by pushing away all elements but one from the point where I could feel the Astral Power leave the Astral River and flow into this entity. Now, if things worked as I hoped they did, the entity drawing in power from the Astral River would only get Ice Astral Power, hopefully giving me some interesting results.

For a few minutes, nothing seemed to happen. The flow of power increased a little, then a lot more, until suddenly, the entire flow disappeared, leaving me wondering just what had happened. Sadly, without a test-subject, I couldn’t really continue testing, so I decided to pull myself back towards my body, following the beacon that was my throne.

After a while of diligent moving through the Astral, I reunited with my body, finding myself just a little bit stiff from sitting still too long, but nothing bad.

However, I did get a bit of a surprise when I checked my notifications, apparently, I had managed to kill a level thirty-seven Horned Deer, whatever that was, while gaining four points in Astral Meditation and two in Mind Magic, bringing the skills to forty-two and sixty, respectively.

At least now I knew why the entity I had noticed had vanished.