151 – Highly Unsettling Encounter
Erin looked more or less like Elise remembered her, though her tails were hidden, of course. She was dressed more casually as well, though still in a more eastern-looking style. Elise had learned at some point with Oberon that “eastern-looking” was actually quite accurate, as the style was native to another continent situated to the east of her current one.
Elise sensed that Erin had a lot of aether, but interestingly enough, she had much more mana. And she didn’t seem to have any active aetheric illusions, as far as Elise could tell. She couldn’t even tell if she had any mana ones active. She was most likely fully transformed into a human for the purposes of helping this class.
While their meeting the first time hadn't left the greatest first impression on Elise, she found Erin’s presence comforting. The fact that she was here alleviated at least some of the worries she had about Emmet knowing what she was. Emmet was competent enough that he probably knew what Erin was as well, and if he was comfortable enough to bring Erin in to teach a class, he definitely didn’t have any kind of grudge or prejudice against monsters.
“Heya everyone!” said Erin cheerfully, not even glancing at Elise. “My name is Erin. I specialize in illusions of all types, both mana and aether.”
“She is one of the premier illusion experts on the planet,” said Emmet. “I doubt there are more than a dozen beings more knowledgeable than her, and that includes dragons and fey and other monsters.”
“Aww, thanks Emmy,” said Erin.
At his praise, everyone in the classroom sat up a bit straighter. Calling her a world-class illusion expert was one thing. Saying she was better than the dragons was borderline heretical. Dragons were the one kind of monster that no humanoid dared to cross. Multiple were known to exist, and some even had publicly known lairs, but when a single dragon could destroy a nation on a whim, no one was willing to bother them. They were also famously prideful, so claiming that Erin was better than them at illusions was potentially a great offense if it wasn’t true, so the fact that Emmet had said it at all meant he firmly believed it.
“Today, most of you will struggle greatly,” said Emmet. “I do not expect any of you to succeed at any of the things I ask of you today. However, I hope this will serve as something to look forward to, because everything I ask you to do today will be something you will be completely capable of by the end of the semester. Today will be more of a demonstration of exactly how aetheric illusions can be used, and how difficult they can be to spot, especially when mixed with ordinary illusions.
“And with that, I will turn the floor over to Erin.”
“Thanks, Emmy,” said Erin. “Alright class, I’m not very good at explaining things without visual aid, so we’ll start with something simple. How many fingers am I holding up?”
She held up her hand, and at first glance, she seemed to be holding up two. However, Elise also sensed both her aether and mana activate, so she peered closer. According to her senses, Erin’s index finger was made entirely of mana, and when she squinted, there seemed to be a shimmer around the pinky area. She suspected that was just her inherent aether capacity helping her to resist the illusion.
“You,” said Erin suddenly, pointing to Cassian with her other hand.
“Two,” said Cassian.
“Which two?”
“Your middle finger and pinky,” he said confidently.
Elise nodded, as that more or less tracked with what she had figured out, but Erin shook her head.
“Close, but not quite. And you, Sophie, are cheating, so I’m not going to call on you until the others have had a chance to guess.”
Elise glanced at Sophie and saw her bring her hand down with a disappointed expression. Her eyes were yellow and slitted, which was probably why Erin said she was cheating.
I wish I had that Skill, thought Elise.
“Anyone else?”
Elise looked closer, focusing her senses until she noticed that there was a faint amount of mana around Erin’s fourth finger. Tentatively, she raised her hand.
“Yes?” said Erin.
“Three,” said Elise. “Middle, fourth, and pinky.”
“Correct!” said Erin as the illusions disappeared, revealing the truth. “Now, can you tell me what kind of illusion I was using on each finger?”
“Mana on the index, nothing on the middle, mana on the fourth finger, and aether on the pinky.”
“Close,” said Erin. “Very close. Young man, can you tell me which one she got wrong?”
Erin turned back to Cassian, who had a contemplative expression on his face. After a few seconds, he responded.
“Did you use mana and aether on your index finger.”
“You got it!” said Erin. “I made an invisible finger out of mana, then covered it with an aetheric illusion. I heard that two students were immune to mental magic here, so I can only assume it’s you two.”
“That’s correct, ma’am,” said Cassian.
“You can just call me Erin. And that right there is a demonstration of when mana and aether illusions can interfere with each other, or create a worse effect. I made the mana finger invisible so that anyone who could see through the aether would guess correctly that it was fake, and I had the mana finger so that those with mana could sense it as well. That one was a freebie, and I hope all of you got it right. If you didn’t, you may need to work on your mana sense.
“Anyway, because I used both mana and aether, and did it clumsily on both counts, anyone could see through it if they were trying to. However, that was also a case of misdirection. Those of you who saw the obvious mana illusion of my index finger completely missed the more subtle illusion on my fourth finger. That little trick is one of the oldest in the book when it comes to illusions and deception. Let them find the obvious fake so that the less obvious one can slip past unnoticed. And of course, the pinky was just a basic aetheric illusion.
“Now, I’ll do an example of a different tactic, where aether and mana illusions work together. For this one, you two–” she pointed at Elise and Sophie. “–are not allowed to participate. You can if you deactivate that eye Skill.” She pointed at Sophie for second before shifting to point at Elise. “But you can’t, and try your best not to be too obvious when you notice what’s going on.”
Sophie reluctantly turned her eyes back to green while Elise nodded. Then, Elise frowned as she realized that Erin seemed to know she had {Aether Sense}. She said already that Emmet told her about Cassian and Leonidas, but had Emmet told Erin about her too? She didn’t even know that Emmet knew, though if he knew she was a changeling, he was probably observant enough to notice she was sensing aether as well. She didn’t like having her secrets exposed like that, but there wasn’t really anything she could do.
“Now, I’m going to make some illusionary clones of myself,” said Erin. “You are going to try to guess which one is the real me.”
Erin stepped forward, except she also didn’t. It looked like she was walking out of herself, a perfect copy moving, and a perfect copy staying behind. Then another stepped forward, and another, and another, all walking to different parts of the classroom. Some of them stood to the side, some of them sat down, and one even started floating around on the ceiling.
Immediately, Elise understood why she wasn’t allowed to participate in this exercise. While every single clone of her was completely realistic in every way, and they were all made of mana, only one of them produced aether, which Elise assumed was the real one. Elise looked around at each illusion in turn, trying her best not to make it obvious which one it was. She caught Three staring at her, clearly trying to gauge by her reaction which was the real one, so Elise redoubled her acting efforts to not give her anything to work with.
After a few seconds, Elise decided to close her eyes, focusing only on her aether and mana senses. Each of the clones was made of mana, but she assumed they also had aetheric counterparts. The problem was, due to the way aether worked, she couldn’t actually sense those aetheric illusions. She could only sense the connection between her and Erin that was causing the illusions. The illusions themselves were all in her head.
This was a huge hole in her aether ability. What did it matter if she could sense that her mind was being manipulated if she couldn’t tell how? In fact, it almost turned her {Aether Sense} into a disadvantage, and she could already think of a dozen ways that an enemy who knew she had it could exploit it. The sheer quantity of aether she had was enough to resist a lot of things, but against someone as powerful as Erin, or likely Emmet as well, it wasn’t much use. She needed a more reliable way to detect illusions, and she knew that a way must have existed, because she had seen it done before.
She thought back to the most recent Ostra meeting when Freddy had picked her out from the crowd, despite the fact that she was using {Don’t Look at Me, Peasants!}. That was mostly to be expected from someone as powerful as him, but at the same time, the Skill had actually worked at first, only failing after he realized what was going on. In his own words, it was an easy Skill to counter once he knew how. She wanted to reach that point as well, where she could just ignore aetheric illusions once she understood that they existed.
“I’ll give you a couple minutes to figure it out,” came Erin’s voice from the front of the class. “Feel free to talk with your neighbors. Just not her.”
Elise assumed that Erin—or at least the illusion at the front of the classroom—was pointing at her, but she didn’t open her eyes. Instead, she entered soul meditation. She had practiced it enough that it only took her a few seconds to enter her soul now, and when she got in, it was… concerning. She had never been in her soul while under the influence of someone else’s aether, so this was a new experience for her, and she didn’t like it at all.
Her soulspace looked normal, but everything had an odd orange tint, and there was a strange fog that clouded her vision and made the air around feel suffocating. She didn’t like it at all, and immediately set about trying to fix it, and surprisingly, it was actually pretty easy. She knew that her soul realm was supposed to be under her command, but forcing the foreign aether out was still surprisingly simple. She just willed it to leave, and as if she detonated an explosion centered on her own body, the fog was pushed back all the way to the walls of her soul, and everything returned to its ordinary color. It wasn’t quite out, but one more push got it out entirely, and once out, it didn’t come back.
She exited soul meditation and opened her eyes to find Emmet looking at her. His expression was one of mild surprise, and Elise didn’t need to guess why. In addition to Emmet staring at her, a System window had appeared in front of her.
[ You have discovered a hidden Skill Quest: {Soul Defense} ]
[ {Soul Defense} (Skill Quest): Remove the influence of foreign aether from your soul 100 times ]
[ Progress: 1/100 ]
[ Reward: {Soul Defense} skill ]
Oh, thought Elise.
She wasn’t allowed to look at the description of Soul Defense, but just from the title and the requirements to unlock it, she could already tell it was good. It was basically exactly what she wanted, though she wondered if it was passive. If it passively blocked illusions, it would be incredibly powerful. Maybe too powerful. Based on the quest, it was most likely an activation Skill that she could use once she noticed she was being affected. Either way though, it would be strong.
She dismissed the window, then noticed that the aether connection between her and Erin had been broken. Because of that, the aetheric illusions were gone, leaving only the mana illusions. Interestingly enough, there were actually a few invisible illusions. To her {Mana Sense}, they obviously existed, but when she looked, there was nothing there. The real Erin was also invisible, which was funny. Especially with where she was. She was clearly pranking Cassian and Leonidas, and Elise couldn’t wait until it got revealed.
She didn’t have to wait long because after only a few more seconds, the Erin at the front spoke. When she did, Elise sensed a bit of aether coming from the real Erin going toward the fake one.
“Alright, time’s up!” she said. “I want everyone to guess, so we’ll go around the room. You state your guess, and your reasoning for your guess, and then we’ll move on to the next person. We’ll start with you!”
Erin pointed to Hugo Larcombe in the back corner.
“I have no idea,” he said. “You’ve stumped me.”
“There’s no shame in admitting ignorance, but I want you to try to make a guess anyway.”
“Alright,” he said before pointing to the one up front. “Then you.”
“Why me?”
“Gut feeling.”
“Fair enough. Now you, Jesse.”
“That one,” said Jessie, pointing to the one floating on the ceiling.
“And why me?” asked the floating one.
“Because when I saw it, I immediately thought ‘it’s obviously not that one.’”
“Oho, interesting. Good guess.” She turned to Elise and Sophie. “Now, next up, we’re skipping both of you because Eleanor already knows the answer and Sophie, I can still sense when you activate your eye Skill, even if your eyes are closed when you do it. So, Samantha… Actually, no, we’re skipping you too because you were watching Sophie and you also know the answer. Helene!”
“That one,” said Helene pointing to the one standing by the entrance. “It’s the sloppiest of the illusions.”
“I see. Leonidas!”
“The floating one,” he said. “‘Cause you seem like the type.”
Erin laughed.
“Interesting. Cassian?”
“...I also guess the floating one,” he said. “For the same reason.”
“I see,” said Erin, nodding. “And last but not least, Three?”
“I believe I know the answer, but in revealing it, I would ruin what you’re trying to do here. May I answer through {Telepathy}?”
“Of course!”
A moment later, all the Erin smiled.
“Very interesting. Now, for the big reveal: you are all… wrong! Even you, Three, I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t me,” said the floating Erin as she faded out of existence.
“Or me,” said the one at the entrance, doing the same.
“Or us,” said most of the others simultaneously.
“It wasn’t me either,” said the one at the front. “It was actually–”
“Me!”
Cassian flinched violently, almost falling out of his chair. The real Erin had been sitting right behind him, invisible, and had leaned in to speak right next to his ear when she revealed herself. The stunt got a few chuckles from the class as Erin made her way back to the front.
“As you can see, mana and aether illusions can be combined to great effect. I’m specifically talking to you two when I say this–” she pointed at Cassian and Leonidas “–but don’t think that when you are immune to mental magic that you are also immune to aetheric illusions. They are the same, but different. If your enemy knows about your immunity, that immunity itself can actually become a weakness. My aetheric illusions may not have affected you, but because of that, you were more susceptible to my mana illusions. You did not even know that there was one of me there, let alone that I might have been the real one. You were so distracted checking the other illusions that you never considered that none of them could have been me.
“And now, since that exercise was unfortunately not very useful for Eleanor and Sophie, I’m going to give one more demonstration of a different version of the same trick. You two also have your own abilities to avoid aetheric illusions to some extent, but an enemy who knows about that can work around it. Watch closely.”
Erin repeated the trick of walking out of herself, creating a half dozen illusory clones, except this time, it wasn’t so simple to pick out the real one. The first time, only one of the Erin’s was producing aether, but this time, all of them were. Elise’s eyes widened as she realized, and she started wondering if it was possible. She focused her senses, trying to pick out which was the real one, but as far as she could tell, they were all identical. They started walking around the room, smiling at her. One grew eight bushy tails that spread out beneath her dress. Another turned into a full fox, also with eight tails. All of their aethers still felt identical.
Elise tried to focus on their mana instead, but found that she couldn’t sense any. She couldn’t even sense her own mana. It was like she had completely lost {Mana Sense} as a Skill.
The Erin that had sprouted tails walked up to her, smiling ominously, and Elise leaned to the side, her heart beating faster with every second.
What’s going on? she thought, panicked.
“Boo!” said Erin.
The kitsune did nothing else, but Elise still flinched. Then, all at once, everything faded, and the room returned to normal. Elise’s {Mana Sense} returned, and Erin returned to normal, standing right where she had been when it started as though she hadn’t moved. Elise looked around at her classmates, who, with the exception of Sophie, were looking at her with confused expressions. Sophie looked similar to how Elise thought that she looked. Her eyes were activated, her face was pale, and her knuckles were white as she clenched her armrests.
“Samantha, tell me what you just saw,” said Erin.
“Nothing,” said Samantha. “You said ‘watch closely,’ but then you just stood there doing nothing. A few seconds later, Eleanor and Sophie started panicking and looking around like they were seeing something we weren’t.”
“Yes,” said Erin. “So, Eleanor. Sophie. Do you understand what just happened?”
Elise nodded, taking a deep breath to calm down.
“It was all in our heads,” she said.
“Correct,” said Erin. “You may be able to sense aether, and Sophie may be able to see through them, but that doesn’t really mean anything when you don’t understand what kind of illusion you’re under. More powerful illusions can fool even those incredible senses of yours.
“Luckily for you, you’ll almost definitely never encounter anything like what you just did. What I just used was one of the most powerful aetheric illusion Skills in the world. It’s also highly illegal without a permit. In fact, it’s so illegal that I can’t even tell you what it’s called, because knowing what it is called is one of the conditions for unlocking its Skill Quest.”
“Erin…” said Emmet in a warning tone.
“In fact, it’s so illegal that I wasn’t even allowed to say that. Oops! Either way, the main point of that demonstration was to show all of you that you shouldn’t get complacent, because no matter how good you get at picking these out, until you reach the level of Emmet or I, there will always be someone able to fool you anyway, despite the tools you have.
“For the rest of the class, we’ll be doing a bit more structured work, but right now, we’re going to take a quick break so I can recharge, then we’ll jump right back into it. We’ll resume in ten minutes!”
Elise noticed that Erin was indeed low on aether. It was a small comfort that it had at least taken a lot out of her to do what she had just done. Even so, Elise was unsettled. More so than she had ever been. Erin’s abilities had always been unsettling, but now that Elise had experienced them firsthand…
I never want to have to experience that again, she thought.
Being at Erin’s mercy wasn’t fun, but even less fun was not being able to trust her own senses. The paranoia she felt hadn’t even fully faded. How did she know she wasn’t still under the effects of the Skill? How did she know she had ever experienced the world properly?
I really need that {Soul Defense} Skill.
The class continued more normally after that, with Erin demonstrating a few more powerful illusions. None of the class could properly see through them, but Erin and Emmet both assured them that they would be able to eventually. When class ended, Elise still felt a bit out of it. The rest of the day passed by in a daze, her mind constantly returning to the spell that Erin had put her under. She had done her best to stop the extreme paranoia, and while she had mostly convinced herself that she wasn’t still being influenced, she still couldn’t shake the feeling from her mind.
When she got back home from classes, she immediately locked herself in her room and entered soul meditation, continuing her progress in solidifying her realm while she idly thought about what had happened. The more she thought about it, the less she liked it. That brief moment was quickly developing into one of her least favorite memories.
She wanted to unlock {Soul Defense} as soon as possible, but with no one to use any aether Skills on her, she was a bit stuck. She also wished she had someone to ask about {Soul Defense} and things like that. She had almost asked Emmet and Erin after class, but Sophie had dragged her out, clearly also uncomfortable. And Irylax was unavailable, having gone to meet an old friend for the evening, so she was stuck alone with her own thoughts.
Then, as she was unifying the colors of one of the walls in her soulspace, she paused, remembering something. It was months ago at this point, but Rayna had given her that slip and offered her assistance with all things aether. With Oberon at her beck and call, and Irylax living just a few feet away, Elise had kind of forgotten about it, but now that both he and Irylax were unavailable, her mind returned to that conversation.
She considered summoning Rayna right there, but decided against it. While Rayna hadn’t been very involved in Operation Blood, she was still the progenitor of the vampire that tried to turn Nick and Bianca. They probably wouldn’t be comfortable with her presence in their home. Instead, after eating dinner with the Grays, she went down into the basement back to Ostra headquarters. There were many rooms like the one she and Emilia had stayed in at the first meeting, and as long as they weren’t already occupied, they were free to use for all Ostra members.
She found one that felt remote enough, being at the very end of a long hallway, flipped a sign marking it as occupied, and locked herself inside. She hesitated a moment before tearing the scroll, wondering if she should really be bothering a 9th tier that she barely knew, but then thought back to Erin’s illusion and pushed her hesitation aside. Rayna had offered this to her. She wouldn’t be annoyed at Elise for taking that offer up.
She tore the scroll, feeling a surge of spatial mana that soon dissipated. About a minute later, there was another surge of mana, and in front of her stood Rayna.