Book 5 - Chapter 27
The journey back to the front was quick, distractingly so. The trip to the border felt normal, like they were just on another patrol, but as soon as they crossed into Arcaena Brin was struck with something like vertigo. The first time they'd made this trip it was step by bloody step, fighting in the mud while puking their guts out. Now that hard won land passed beneath their horses hooves with barely a thought. It was empty and tame, as if it weren't valuable, as if men hadn't died for every inch.
Then there was another jarring shift, because they got to the place where they'd left the army and it was nowhere in sight. They followed the trail, and it kept going, and going, and going. The army must've marched ten miles every day the Lance was gone, because when they finally found it, they were deep in Arcaena's territory.
The army had stopped outside a city, a large one the size of Blackcliff. Brin’s Invisible Eyes quickly informed him that it was empty. He wasn't sure why the army had stopped outside, but it wasn't because there was a siege. This place had been evacuated.
He wanted to go around the army and go see the town, but that was vacation-mode thinking. They were back on duty. They arrived at camp, were given a spot to set up their tent, and Cid split off while the rest of them were told to sit and wait.
That was just fine with Brin. He had experiments to run.
He’d start with himself; he’d already decided on that. Messing with other people’s minds, even with their permission, seemed like a risk not worth taking, not when he had so many tools for messing with his own mind. He’d start with himself first, and if he found something worth pursuing, he’d try it on Cid.
He summoned a Mirror Man and left it transparent and obviously glass, and put a plain glass sword in his hands. The part of this that would be visible wasn't something that he needed to hide. He told the men that he wanted to experiment with the cutting power of different words of Language. He doubted that they believed that was all he was doing, but they knew him well enough to accept the line and spread it along to anyone else curious enough to ask.
Brin needed to create two minds. The first would be a conscious thread who embodied the Mirror Man, moving him around as if it were his own body, with directed threads to help make it feel natural and give him vision and hearing. He would be the subject of the experiment.
Main: Thread 1, report.
Thread 1: Reporting in. Hey, just had a thought. This will work better if I think of myself as a distinct person. I should have a name.
Main: Jake
Jake: You're killing me.
Main: What's wrong with it?
Jake: Just a little cliche is all.
Main: Would you rather be Jason?
Jake: Kill me now.
Main: Not just yet. I need to torture you into insanity first.
Jake: Lucky me.
The next mind needed to be split off the first, and then kept as separate as possibly. This one would be the examiner. It needed to be able to peer into the first mind, hopefully without being contaminated by it.
Examiner: Ready to go.
Jake: All clear.
Main: Very good. Give me a cut as a baseline.
Jake found a log that had been set aside to be split for firewood. He set it on its side so he'd be cutting against the grain, and gave a practice swing. Brin had already determined how hard he’d hit. The purpose of this was to see if some amount of visualization and mental preparation could make him cut harder without actually changing the amount of force he used.
Odo seemed to think it was possible. He had preached that with an appropriate amount of understanding and control, a pre-System child would be able to cut a boulder apart with a toothpick. That's the ability that Cid was striving for. Any acknowledgement from the System would just be icing on the cake.
Jake made the cut, and it wasn't very strong, barely enough to chip through the bark. That was good, though. Any improvement would be very noticeable.
Jake: Baseline set.
Main: Let's get started, then.
Brin summoned a mirror with light and put it in front of Jake's face. With the power of reflected light, he added the persuasion of [Say What's True].
For this first experiment, he just put in all the most common adages and truisms that Odo had repeated. I am the one who cuts. Not my arm. Not my sword. Me. I cut with my heart. I cut with my mind. I have forged my soul. I have sharpened my soul. My soul is the sword. I see the cut before it happens. I form my mind and my mind forms reality...
He didn't really understand any of that, not the way Odo did. It was one thing to hear the words, it was another thing to accept them as anything other than an interesting idea. But hopefully [Say What's True] could help with that. He could transform himself into someone who'd already integrated all those ideas, someone who accepted them fundamentally.
Jake accepted the mind alteration, and blinked his glassy eyes, shaking his head. Then without being prompted, he swung down again on the log. The blow was exactly as powerful as the one before.
Main: No improvement. How are we feeling?
Jake: Fine. I don't feel any different. I don't think it did much. Too abstract.
Examiner: Subject's mental state is within acceptable tolerances. Recommend safe to return.
Brin returned the thread carrying both minds, and examined the returned memories. He did feel a little different, so it wasn't like the alteration hadn't done anything, but he agreed with the Examiner that it was fine to have it back in his head. He was more motivated to hit harder, to cut quicker, to put more energy into his cutting magic. But he hadn't actually changed the way he thought about the idea of cutting. Like this, he could see places where his persuasion had failed, areas where the ideas had failed to take root.
With his examination finished, he held a mirror up to his own face and set himself back to the baseline he'd created right after getting his Class. He sighed in relief when it worked and he felt like himself again. This was going to work.
He created the same minds again, and started the experiment over. The results were similar.
Main: No improvement. How are we feeling?
Jake 2: Same as last time, I think.
Examiner: Subject's mental state is within acceptable tolerances. Recommend safe to return.
Brin refined his arguments, and started over. This training might not be helping him get any closer to mastering the blade, but it was definitely helping him refine [Say What's True]. He should've started practicing this kind of thing weeks ago. He was in the unique position of being able to practice mental manipulation as both the perpetrator and the victim. It was giving him a huge leg up on learning how to mess with someone's mind. Well, with his own mind anyway, but he bet it translated.
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The System was impressed as well.
Through training, you have increased the following attribute:
Mental Control +1
On Jake 7, he cut a deep, two-inch gouge into the wood. He got excited, thinking he'd made progress, but then noticed that the copy had used a lot more Mana than he should've. He'd cheated. Brin dismissed that thread without returning it, adjusted his arguments, and kept trying.
By the time he got to Jake 15, he decided that this path wasn't yielding results. He'd managed to put himself into a state of pure, aggressive, violent concentration, and while he was interested to see what that would do in a spar, he'd also run out of ways to improve it. This was as far as this path went. He needed to try something else.
Thinking about Odo's teachings, the way he'd been guiding his students to think about themselves, he thought maybe the problem was that Brin wasn't being extreme enough. The [Path of the Blade] wasn't about using a weapon. It was about being a weapon. Maybe he could try something like that?
For Jake 16, Brin went with an argument a lot closer to the sheer stupid simplicity of I AM THE SUN. He only made one slight change. I AM THE BLADE.
He cast the spell, and Jake 15 didn't move.
Main: Begin the experiment.
Main: Start when ready.
Main: Cut the log, please.
Examiner: Subject's mental state compromised. Recommend dismissing the thread. Do not return.
Main: What's wrong? What's going on?
Examiner: Subject believes he is an actual sword. Cannot move or think.
Brin dismissed it and started again. This time, he pressed the argument with a little more nuance. I AM THE BLADE. Still as strong an argument as before, but without overwhelming his baseline personality.
The Mirror Man brought his hands to his head, and Brin was sure that if he'd given him a mouth, he'd be screaming in anguish.
Jake 17: STOP! MAKE IT STOP!
Examiner: Recommend immediate termination.
Brin shut that thread down hard. He sighed in relief when the Mirror Man stopped moving, but he had to straighten out the statue himself, because it was still hunched over in pain.
Rather than jump into the next experiment, he took a second to think it through. The I AM THE SUN path might still have something to it, but he needed to fix how he altered the identity. Instead of pressing it down from above, he needed to remove all the parts of himself that thought about himself as a person, while still retaining his ability to think. Jake 17 had been in pain because he'd been halfway there. Half a blade, half a man. He needed to be a blade in the form of a man. That battle meditation he'd worked out with Jakes 1 through 15 might help, too. Just the sprinkles on top to give the man-blade direction.
He summoned a new Jake and used [Say What's True]. I am the blade. There is no "I". There is only the blade. There is only the cut. I do not think or feel. I act. There is no "I". There is only action. I am the blade.
The spell was set, and Brin held his breath in anticipation.
Jake 18 looked at the sword in his glass hand as if he'd never seen anything more beautiful.
Marksi, who'd been napping nearby, suddenly jolted up. He hissed, and then tore away from their campsite. Brin was worried Marksi had spotted an ambush or a secret enemy, but his Invisible Eyes didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Bad dream?
Main: Begin the experiment, please.
Jake 18: Sure thing.
The Mirror Man swung down, entire body focused in concentration. Even before it hit, Brin could tell this was different. Something real was happening. The blade hit the wood with a whisper rather than a loud crack, and buried itself eight inches into the log.
"Success!" Brin cheered out loud. The Mirror Man grinned back, and tried to pull the sword out. It was stuck, so he used [Shape Glass] to morph its shape and pull it free.
Main: Awesome! How do you feel?
Examiner: abort
Jake 18: I feel good!
Jake 18: I feel normal. Situation normal.
Examiner: ABORT!
Main: Examiner, please explain.
Jake 18: The examiner is buggy.
Examiner: Abort now! Shut it down! shut it down shutitdown shutitdownshutitdownshutitdown
Jake 18: Done! I shut it down. What a surprise, I think it was the Examiner who was a failure this time. All good. All good and normal. Incredible, really! You're really in for a treat. Don't end me just yet, please. I think... I think there are more experiments to run.
Brin felt his skin crawl. That Mirror Man, that wasn't just another version of him anymore. There was something strange about it. Something foreign. If Jake 18 had wanted to infect his consciousness, he could've returned on his own already. The fact that he hadn't meant that he didn't want to return to Brin. He already saw himself as something new. Something else. The smart thing to do would be to dismiss the thread right now. But he was just too curious. He used [Wyrdic Inspect].
Shard of Brin
With the Wyrd came understanding. First, it was insane. A writhing mass of discordant intelligence. Any semblance it had to rational speech was just the vain mimicry of a parrot. The second thing he noticed was that the mental persuasion really had achieved something, something that the System had decided to reward. As the thread was completely closed off, it had given the reward only to the thread. That had further widened their separation, turning the thread into something distinct.
The third thing the Wyrd told him was that the thread hadn't consciously decided not to return. It just hadn't thought of it yet.
Jake 18: Testing. We should test.
Main: Good idea.
Out loud, he said, "Govannon. Come here for a second."
Govannon groaned in annoyance but stood up from the campfire. Oh wow, it had gotten late. That didn't matter now.
Govannon slapped his helmet on, picked up his sword and said, "What do you need, boss?"
Brin nodded towards Jake 18. "Go kill that thing."
Govannon shrugged. He looked at the sword in his hand, and then thought better and replaced it with his axe. Brin would say that was a good sign, but it was likely that he just didn't want to dull the edge of his sword and didn't care what happened to the axe.
He'd barely stepped forward when Jake dashed towards him. A quick reflexive step back saved Govannon's throat, and Jake stepped into his guard and swung hard into his stomach. The blow left a trail of sparks against the magical armor.
Jake was using a murderous amount of Brin's magic and he tamped it down to a much more reasonable level. He wanted to see how it would fight; he didn't want to kill Govannon.
Jake kept up the attack, not letting Govannon get his bearings. He didn't fight like Brin, who liked to start careful testing strikes while looking for an opening. Jake went all out from the beginning, and committed completely to every swing of his sword. He fought more like a [Knight], frankly, like he expected every swing to be the end of things.
He also felt no need to stay in his human form. When Govannon blocked a thrust, Jake slid into a line of glass and snaked through the air to land behind him, already moving into a perfect upward sweep. Brin didn't give him enough power to make him particularly fast, but his wildly unpredictable technique coupled with strikes that hit harder than they should meant that Govannon was pressed hard.
But Govannon wasn't a slouch either. He adjusted his form, staying small and tight and ready to respond from any direction. He focused on avoiding and dodging rather than parrying. Each of Jake’s blows were still solid and perfectly formed, and now that they weren’t connecting, Brin noticed something else unusual. There seemed to be a faint trail of energy following the blade and he had no idea what it was. Also, the sword seemed to cut a bit further into the air than they should. Maybe it was his imagination.
When Jake dashed in with a perfectly formed but predictable stab, Govannon turned it aside and flowed into a swing that put the spike of his axe into Jake's skull, shattering the glass.
Jake stumbled back, already reforming the wound, but Govannon had his metaphorical blood in his mouth. He crashed into the Shard, adjusted to the strange movements, and delivered cracking strikes one after another. Jake's glass took longer to form up again. Breaks stopped healing all of the way. The glass was cracking; the mind controlling the glass was cracking.
Govannon neglected his axe and drove an armored fist into Jake's gut. The glass broke, splitting him in half.
"Anshar's Balls, Brin. What was that? I just got a level for that!" said Govannon.
Brin froze the directed thread, changing it so that its perception of time was one second per day. He could feel the fight was done, and he did not want that thread to return right now.
Or did he? He had a choice to make here. He could let the thread return. That would give him whatever power-up the System had granted the Shard. It would also drive him insane. He might have the presence of mind to use the baseline on himself again to restore his personality... but he might not. Sad as he was to say it, it wasn't worth the risk.
The other thing he could do would be to keep the directed thread frozen. He could pull it out again when he needed it, and give it another glass body. He doubted it would care what it was fighting against as long as it got to fight. It was a weirdly effective warrior. A pocket demon. One that could return at any moment and drive him insane.
Brin dismissed the thread before he could talk himself out of it.
He groaned at the loss, wiped the sweat off his face, and tried again. His real mistake that time had been to let the test subject summon the examiner. It was pretty obvious it should've been the other way around.
He tried the experiment again. Jake 19 was insane again. A gibbering mess that couldn't be convinced to fight. Jake 20 was comatose. Jake 21 as well. Jake 22 was the usual failure; for some reason the argument didn't take root and he felt no changes. Jake 23 was insane again, willing to fight, but didn't have any extra power. Jake 24, another failure.
At some point he needed to stop and wonder if any of this was worthwhile. He was only able to affect his clones to this degree because [Mirrored Duplicity] let him overcome his own mental resistances. There was no way to know how these same illusions would affect anyone else, but he bet even the average person’s natural resistances would block most of it. After all, if he could drive people mad just by showing them their reflection, he would just do that all over the place.
But if he could reliably get a clone in the state of Jake 18, then Cid would have to gain something from the experience. He’d keep trying tomorrow and every day after that, unless the war got in the way.