Merged Lutore Layers: I did this as part of trying to bypass the problems I was having with my Dumines, and as far as I can tell there''s no further benefit. To be fair, I haven''t really researched a lot about how the lutore works and what the layers mean, so this could come in handy later. For all I know it''s also helping with the scrying stuff, since that uses my lutore, and also it''s possible my layers were fucked up to begin with since that lady Katrin and I paid to look at me way back in Handoleren made some comments.
Comprehension of Dumine Back-End: Had to do this one so I could do anything else properly. Most people who meditate on their Dumine see a plain blue nothingness with a hexagon on it, but I see the flickery edges of all three blue fields and a crazy squirmy 4d mess in-between. This ability has let me understand and communicate with it more, and I think that''s also allowed me to better fine-tune the abilities I can unlock. It might also mean I can fuck up and get abilities that aren''t optimized or are actually actively bad for me. Sometimes it even feels like I''m having a conversation with something when I try to plan out abilities.
Threadsight: Got this one by accident, but it''s been very interesting. Lets me visually perceive types of magic that I have a gift for, as colorful lines. Fate-related threads have a sort of opalescent shimmer to them, and things that use multiple areas of magic either look like multiple colors or some shade in-between OR this strange "it''s completely green but also completely blue" thing that would be impossible in the real world, which I guess just shows the limitations of trying to perceive magic by color-coding it. I can for sure see the spirit threads that connect people''s minds and souls to their bodies, and fate stuff, and some spells being cast. Also, it can let me see spirits that would otherwise be invisible.
Sometimes I can see a sort of gap or half-visible thing where there''s a type of magic I don''t have a gift for. Comprehension can let people cast spells of any kind, so shouldn''t I be able to see everything? Something to look into. I upgraded the sight some to see a little more detail at one point, maybe I could upgrade again to see other types of magic. Maybe not though, because of how this ability was originally "designed".
Minor Learning Boost: This is a teeny one. I managed to slightly increase my ability to learn new stuff, mainly languages. It''s very minor, I was just trying to copy Katrin. It should also let me start learning to read her spellbook if I tried, but I''d still be shitty at it and I''ve been too busy with my own stuff. If I wanted to really focus on spellcasting or programming with runes I''d need to put way more potential into it. But I dunno, maybe at some point I''ll up this some and learn enough to do something simple like light fires.
Memory Palace: My favorite. It was already there, really, because it''s my mind''s domain in Ematse. By default, unless I make it reel back in or I enter an area that has really heavy planar warding beyond what''s needed to prevent actual travel, my mind just lives there all the time. But this ability lets me shift my active consciousness into my mind rather than my body, which has loads of benefits. I can have a private fort, enjoy some Earth foods, etc. Also the more I use it the better I get at manipulating things in Ematse, and the more my meat brain passes stuff off to my mind. That means if someone stabs me through my head so long as it doesn''t kill me it can probably be healed with no brain damage. I should look into doing the same with my soul, since that supposedly handles other aspects of myself that currently aren''t being backed up. Most recently I''ve gotten good at making time pass faster in my memory palace, so that I can plot and scheme without missing anything in the "real" world.
Memory Palace Upgrades:
* My memories are now accessible via the memory palace, and will be much harder for anything to fuck with. It doesn''t do anything to help with the existing tampered memories.
* My memory palace keeps getting bigger - right now I don''t think the memory areas continue to exist when I''m not there, I think the hallways modeled after the Long Haul Hotel generate on the fly but the bedroom areas are always static. But I''ve added to those, and I don''t think I could have done that right away.
* Visitor passes - I can invite other people''s minds in, for Katrin and Errod and Hugh I think I need to be touching them but for Human!Callie she can just pop over, due to the spell connecting us. I tried reaching out to Katrin via a fate thread and it didn''t work or she didn''t answer. I haven''t tried just being in proximity without holding hands, I think it might work within my lutore even if we''re not touching.
* Mental security - it can shunt unwanted visitors to a jail cell, but actually since there was already a high security area in my memory palace that someone else put there it''s sending people to that. That area looks like a self-storage unit for some reason, and is populated by Granch which are some sort of territorial spirits that... reproduce via mitosis maybe? And they totally ate a guy''s mind. Super fucked up, but don''t seem interested in bothering anyone I let in on purpose. My mental security currently doesn''t keep people from doing surface level stuff, like forcing me to tell the truth.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Scrying / Divination: This works on the area where the planar membrane overlaps my lutore, and is enhanced with Temporal magic to reach indefinitely(?) into the past. I can only use it via my memory palace, because I linked it to that stuff to make it work better and cheaper. That being said, I don''t think of it as just an upgrade to my memory palace, because it''s too cool and important. I can''t use this on places where I can''t touch the planar membrane (so far that''s Earth and a few heavily warded areas, note on those in a minute). Mana cost increases if I push my perception through walls for some reason, but that doesn''t seem to be an issue for smaller stuff like books which means I can retroactively go back and read stuff I didn''t even pick up when I was there.
I''m not sure if the divination handles everything right. How good are the physics reproductions? Will volatile chemicals explode? Would electronics work? What about magnets? Hugh was able to use his magic in Ematse, but I had to kind of... will it... to work. So if I do divination and pick up a magic item? Actually hang on. Okay no, they don''t work right. But runes are runes, so they should work in Ematse, right? I might just have to re-activate them or something, and if they were relying on being written on some specific material that would be a problem since it''s not REALLY that material here. For sure something I need to experiment more with. The point is, for mundane shit like books I can take the copy from the divination thing and carry it into a static area like my bedroom so it will stick around and I can read it whenever without further mana expenditure. Objects grabbed from memories without using divination are like bad AI reproductions, and are likely to be fucked up in some way. I grabbed a copy of Jake Ross and the Sword of Destiny and every page was just filled with scribbles.
Note on Warding and Stuff: If I''m in a heavily warded area like the library in Sentortzi or First Citizen Patak''s office or almost anywhere in this fucking place I''m stuck in right now (other than the practice room) my mind and soul get yanked back to my body and, unless I force them to stay out, they''ll overlap with it and be essentially invisible inside me. Not having your mind and soul in their domains in Ematse and Erima means a huge reduction to your mana regeneration though, so very few places bother with this. It''s not needed to prevent physical planar travel, which is what they''re usually actually warding against.
Because of my practice with mind shit, I can pilot my mind around even in these areas - but since the divination and memory stuff is linked to my memory palace and that''s in Ematse, my options are limited. I can kinda poke at things, but even though I''m looking at the actual real world if I try to open a book it won''t work - I feel like since my mind is all ephemeral and shit I should be able to just shove my face between the pages, but there''s a concept of self that gets in the way. If I made myself all floppy and shit, it''s possible healing magic wouldn''t work right on me anymore. I dunno, I didn''t get a very good explanation of that. Anyway, the point is that even without my memory palace I can look around corners and stuff - I just can''t open books or lift up stuff to look under them accurately.
Templating: I can gather information from either myself, or the Common Local Understanding, and box it up into a sort of totem thingy. If I just do this on myself, it doesn''t seem to even really be using my Dumines and it takes basically no mana - it''s an extension of my abilities within Ematse. If I do reach out to the Common Local Understanding, I''ll get a way more comprehensive take but it uses mana. If I just do it on memories they''re gone unless I un-pack them, and while I can in theory make a duplicate of the totem thingy and only unpack one of them I haven''t practiced with that. For other things, especially when I''m reaching out for info from the collective consciousness, I''m not stealing or destroying that information. No luck using it through divination (boo) but I think it might combine with divination so long as I''m also looking at the present - which means I''ll probably be able to template physical objects. Actually, I should test that in the training room some time.
Un-packing stuff is something I haven''t practiced a lot. The original ability I got from Sentortzi just sank right in when I unpacked it for some reason, and if I could figure that out I could learn all sorts of skills without having to do all that tedious practice and shit. But so far, nothing. Some things seem easier to unpack, but I don''t know why. Trickiest thing so far is the creepy statue in my memory palace, but that maybe follows different rules since it wasn''t actually packaged up by that ability in the first place - if I do manage to unpack it, I suspect it will tell me what fucked up part of my subconscious called it into being in the first place. Not sure I want the answer to that.