

Dream wrote: Tell Aggy you think that’s fucking stupid and impossible.

You, ah… you’ll try, you say. Though you ask the ghost if he has any more specific directions. The whole thing with unicorns and bridges is a little… abstract.

Mysticism is abstract, he says. If you think in concrete terms, you’ll only get concrete results – like things falling downward, or objects stopping when they hit something else. You have to think a little less like the world and make the world a little more like you think, and thinking is rarely concrete. Unless it is. It depends how your mind works.

You tell him that your mind is kind of a fucking mess.

He says that’s the best kind. Messes have the most going on, and the most that can happen. You just have to bridge that gap so it happens outside you rather than inside you. Like… an orange.

Like an orange, you repeat. Yeah, he says.

The ghost neglects to go into any further detail.



Roxforbraynz wrote: Katia: Do a little practice first. Start with something small, like one of the puzzle pegs. Since it’s lighter, it’ll be easier to tell when you’re getting closer to something that works.

Alright then. If he’s not going to give you any cohesive advice, it’s time to start experimenting with this. He’s right; you’ve used telekinesis before. You just need to focus it.

Experiment one: weaponizing puns. That seems to be a pretty reliable route for you.



Tryffin wrote: Look, you might not get what this ghost is saying to you but come on you should just WING it like always.



Anon44 wrote: Now don’t become a raven lunatic, Katia. You’re still able to use Telekinesis no matter how hawkward it may seem. No fowl play here. Just wing it!



Tempy wrote: Do it! Do the thing! The brainy movey thing! Don’t go all bird-brained on us!



AK wrote: Let’s wing it. I think that whole table might be beak-ining to take flight! If what that guy is talon you is cere-ously crow-rect, then I bet you’ll make that table fly! Egg-specialy because it’s a table without clipped wings. It was made to soar! You might still be a fledgeling when it comes to this, but I have faith in you. Toucan do anything you set your mind to. Just stork to it! Even if you don’t take right to it, it’d be okay. No harm, no fowl.

Oh my fucking gods.

These aren’t even good. Like, half of them are just variants on “wing it”.

But no, it doesn’t look to be having any effect.

Hold on, hold on, hold oooon, the ghost interrupts. You’re still trying to brute force it.

You ask him what he means. He explains that your amulet is reacting, which means you’re trying to force a full-on, mentally vocalized spell past it and it’s stopping you. Heck, you should be able to feel that. It feels like… like trying to pee when you don’t have a urethra. You tell him you’ve never not had a urethra. He thinks about it for a minute, then concedes that, yeah, maybe that is an experience unique to ghosts.

But you said your magic sets things on fire, right? That’s raw magic, the sort that takes willpower. You’re muscling magicka into energy and then throwing it at the world.

The old arts like Mysticism are softer; you’re taking energy that’s already there and changing how it presents itself. Lifting an object with pure magical energy would be like trying to push a cart that has no wheels. Instead of applying force, you should be building a wheel!

I thought this was about unicorns, not wheels, you say.

The ghost tells you that if unicorns and wheels are that different to you, then you might be looking at Mysticism wrong.



wrotewrotewrotewrotewrotewrote wrote: he’s telling you to try and figure out how to use magic by seeing how those cat puns triggered your flame magic. Looking back, those puns hurt your feeling and then a fire started. Looking at the situation logically (ironic I know), it would appear that maybe your fire magic was triggered whenever you had that feeling of being hurt. And this conclusion also may lead to the possibly that maybe your magic is controlled by your emotions. So think back to what you felt when you used telekinesis in the past, maybe that’s the key to using it.

Alright, now that seems like a step in the right direction.

When you used fire magic, it wasn’t the cat jokes that were powering it. It was the fact that they hurt you. You were using them and enduring them anyway, and like the ghost said, that’s willpower. You used it to ignite magical energy.

If the other animal jokes were able to trigger your telekinesis, then there must have been some deeper emotion they were triggering. When you used them, you guess you felt… confused. So… maybe telekinesis is powered by confusion.

IT’S NOT WORKING.

Additional resource credits:

Cider – the usual