Inari’s Gift

After waking in the morning, Cera spent some extra time brushing and hugging her tail, as she was somewhat stressed out.  Today, she’d be trying random experimentation to attempt to figure out how to begin working with spacial magic, which was quite dangerous even without the randomness thrown in.

After she felt suitably calm, Cera left the city, settling on a hill nearby.  While she’d prefer to sit while working through all the possible ideas she had, she was doing something dangerous enough that she needed to have the option to move quickly.  First of all, she spent several minutes setting up an incredibly complex series of barriers, then formed a construct that would simply redirect her magic into a distant location, in this case, several feet beyond her barriers.

From then until shortly before she needed to meet her students, she tried one thing after another, the vast majority doing nothing of note beyond making the mana chaotic.  There were, however, several magical detonations, the main reason she had placed shields and distance between herself and her magic.  Despite hundreds of different attempts, she had no success in finding how to manipulate space.  Nor, in fact, had she managed anything of value.

Cera wasn’t discouraged, however; in her prior life, there were times when she spent weeks or months experimenting all day long without finding anything valuable.  She did hope she found something soon, however, so that she could share with her students rather than keeping them waiting.

As it got later, she returned to the city, heading to the healers’ guild, taking a few moments to ask if they could try to find someone fitting the needs of her class: having a small missing part like a finger or two, and being willing to have someone experiment on them.  It may take a while, but it was much more likely to work than if she tried to handle it on her own.  Especially considering that she wasn’t the best at talking to people at random, and didn’t know anyone who might be fitting.  If nothing else, the healers’ guild had records of people they treated, and that would give them somewhere to start.

Her task done, she then headed to the mages’ guild, making it there just before the last of her students gathered.  For today, she decided to combine her knowledge of biology from her prior world, which was much more advanced in science, plus the magical knowledge she’d read about in the books in this world.  She then brought up her own experiences, performing a little experiment on herself involving manipulating her circulatory system in one of her hands, then sharing the results.

Eventually, the time came for them to part for the evening, and Cera headed back into the central room, intending to read a little before heading back home.  Instead, she found Ann waiting for her with a woman she didn’t know yet.

After Ann pointed to Cera, the woman quietly spoke to her, “Hello, my name is Laura.  Ann wanted me to learn from you, and she managed to convince me.”

She took a moment to glance around, spotting some other people still nearby before carefully adding, “She said you were… unusual… and that made me quite interested.  I haven’t met anyone like you before, after all.  I wanted to know what people like you were like.”

Ann then interjected, “You know what she means, I’m sure.  Feel free to take one of the rooms to talk.  I’ll make sure no one enters or overhears.”

With only a slight hesitation, Cera nodded and led Laura to another room with a large table in the middle, closing the door behind them.  As the door closed, Laura gave it a glance, hesitating before moving to the chair closest to it and sitting right on the edge of the cushion.

Understanding the hesitation, as she often felt similar when around unfamiliar people, Cera moved away from her and pulled out a chair on the opposite side of the table to sit.

Before she could actually sit, however, Laura asked, “Would it be possible for you to show me how you really look?  Ann said you are always using illusions to hide your true form.”

With a sigh, Cera nodded, stood, and moved so Laura would have a better view, then finally dropped her illusions, revealing her ears and tail.  Laura’s eyes went wide, immediately locking onto Cera’s tail.

After just an instant of silence, Laura gasped before remarking, “It looks so fluffy!  I want to touch it!”

Shaking her head, Cera defensively took a step back, watching Laura immediately frown and turn her head down, then explained, “It’s pretty personal, and I don’t want to let others touch it for a number of reasons.  My apologies.”

A moment of pouting later, Laura then asked, “Could you teach me how to use illusions?  They seem quite useful, but no one has ever been willing to teach me.”

Sighing yet again, Cera replied, “I’m afraid I can’t really teach that one very well.  I understand the principles quite well, but I don’t understand how to use magic to do it.  What I do is based on the spiritual abilities that I possess from being a kitsune.  You can think of it as something similar to the powers that a sufficiently connected faithful of a god can gain, but naturally a part of me.”

She took a moment to think before continuing, “That said, I can share that there are a few kinds of illusion, and give some recommendations.  First, and while quite difficult, possibly the easiest, is to actually manipulate the world.  Alter light to create patterns that shouldn’t exist.  This requires a great deal of understanding of the nature of light, how things look from different angles, and significant focus.  It also gets worse the more people you are trying to fool, and the more spread out such people are from the point of influence.”

Cera paused again to let Laura process her last statement before resuming, “This can also be done for sound, which is far easier, as you don’t have to create multiple copies for multiple people, just propagate a single sound from a single point.  Then the next method I personally consider unethical in most cases.  You can, with sufficient knowledge of the mind and senses, and skill at bypassing defenses, directly influence someone’s senses and/or mind.  This allows creating illusions that only a single person experiences, as well as phantom touch and taste.  You can also simply disorient people by producing chaotic sensory feedback.”

With another short pause, Cera added, “Personally, I recommend only doing the first method unless you intend to destroy someone.  If they are trying to kill you, invading their mind to stop them isn’t as much of a concern, in my opinion, and in that case, you don’t need to be careful in what you do.”

She then waited for Laura to respond before suddenly remembering something and finishing, “Oh, right!  If you only want to fool a single person, and they are stationary, you can create an image directly in front of their eyes, meaning you don’t need as large of an illusion, and it isn’t as likely to be noticed and found odd by other people nearby.”

After a moment, Laura nodded before asking, “Do you know how I might get started with that?  It’s a lot of interesting ideas, but I do need a starting point that isn’t just ‘be able to do it already’ since I can’t do that.”

“Hmm, perhaps the guild here has a book about it.  I didn’t really look for anything on illusion since I can do it naturally.  If you find a book about it, please let me know.  I’m interested in learning the normal way to do it as well,” Cera replied with a smile before adding, “I enjoy reading quite a bit, especially when I get to learn new things!”

Once again, Laura nodded, remarking, “I do, too!  But I can’t really browse the books here, as I’m not actually a member of the guild, and really shouldn’t even be back here.  But Ann let me in so that I could meet you somewhere she was confident was safe, and where I’d know she was nearby.  She’s not willing to go around the rules more than that much.”

Cera frowned at the admission that Laura wasn’t supposed to be here, then sighed and said, “I suppose I’ll look for a book, then.”

A moment later, Cera’s eyes went wide, and she exclaimed, “Oh!  Maybe I shouldn’t have explained all that!  I prefer to get to know people a bit before giving out potentially dangerous knowledge.  I hope you don’t mind if I question you about your life and how you think for the rest of the evening.”

The two then spent the next few hours discussing Laura’s life and how she thought and reacted to things, though it was clear she wasn’t terribly comfortable with some of the topics and how deep and personal they got.  In the end, Cera decided she had no issues with teaching the woman, as she seemed to have quite good morals, in her opinion, at least.

Eventually, Cera found herself growing quite tired and called for an end to their meeting.  Laura remarked that she was still fine since she normally got up late in the afternoon and stayed up all night, but understood that others weren’t on the same schedule.

Cera chuckled, similarly stating, “I used to be the same, but I’ve had to change quite some time back in order to properly deal with the rest of the people around me.  Anyway, I hope you have a good night, Laura.”

The two then left, Cera nodding to Ann and stating that she’d accepted the deal fully, and Laura joining Ann as the two left as well.  Not long after, Cera made it back to her home, finding that this time, nothing unusual had occurred in her absence.

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