[X] You want to continue your vacation. There is still plenty to do here.
-[X] Work on Aura Sight. Read some of the book and try to use it around town if you can get it going.
Bar Harbor, Maine- July 16, 11: 06 EDT
You crack open the book and begin to read. The paper is cheap and for some inexplicable reason the book smells of oranges. You would have expected something British and low class like tobacco or beer, but oranges? You briefly wonder if this is some obscure test or a reaction due to your apparently having some kind of aspect of "orange" avarice, but it doesn't seem like Ethan.
The cover is purple and quite sparkly, with the back having the picture of a heavily bearded man who might be East Indian, or faking being East Indian, based on a name you can't imagine pronouncing.
Every sentient being, no matter the origin, has a "soul" according to the book. The citations for this include experiments by Amy Winston, PhD. You can't recall an Amy Winston, but the name seems annoyingly familiar. There are long digressions into history and scientific concepts that remind you
very strongly of some UFO literature you have read. Either Ethan has the worst taste in textbooks, or the options were pretty bad.
Anything that feels an emotion releases tiny amounts of electromagnetic energy colored appropriately. Anything that has emotions about itself closes a kind of electromagnetic loop that vanishes spontaneously after death most of the time, though occasionally lies within the body or leaves it to create a "ghost." The electromagnetic energy of the soul works in a mystical pattern that is indistinguishable from consciousness and sensation.
The principle of aura sight is to become aware of your own soul's reactions to the souls of others. Given the connection between the soul and electromagnetism, literal light, it is usually easiest to translate these influences into the visual spectrum. Sound, smell, taste, and more evolved have been reported among users of The Powers.
In some ways the more you learn about this the more disturbing the idea becomes. You are literally giving yourself a mental disorder, synesthesia, to translate emotions into colors. Learning magic changes the learner. You are going to sacrifice a piece of who you were to become a witch.
You sigh and leave your room. Spencer seems very likely to ignore you as you try to put this book into practice. She is chatting happily with an old man you don't think is the relative she is visiting. She waves at you happily as you sit down and begin to half-listen.
You try to match her mood, her emotion, while standing near her, and then try to shift away from it rapidly. You focus on the color you are "feeling" at the time. Slowly you begin to notice discrepancies in Spencer, feel the disassociation between your assumptions and her feelings. Spencer and the old man, James something, don't pay too much attention.
You focus on the colors, hard. There are glimmers, now. Flashes along faces or the backs of heads. Once you train yourself into this state it is hard to pull out of. Spencer has waves of violet and a kind of churning of green, yellow, and blue.
The man is stranger, very bizarre, with a long trail of black. According to your book, that is the burning of someone associated with death, an imposition on the normal and healthy spectrum. Robots, zombies, ghosts, the suicidal, manifest the black light. The strange flickering of black, yellow and orange are disturbing. This is someone who has given up, someone who does not believe in his own free will. The book called such people "servants of Anti-Life."
In some ways aura sight is the easiest thing in the world once the ball gets rolling. All you have to do is pay more attention to the things you were already looking for. You are seeing another piece of people.
According to the book, there is a reason not everyone reads auras. Humans are a social race. Aura reading can throw off instincts, put someone half a step out of society. A thousand little social truths, lies that keep society functioning, can be torn away. For someone who cannot compensate, untrained, uneducated, it could be disastrous in a tribe of hunters and gatherers. The fact that this is in the middle of a long dissertation on orgone energy and the amazing scientific power of vitamins is not reassuring for the accuracy of these claims.
Mostly aura reading is neutral, mostly. Plenty of alien races use aura reading. But it is more often than not a disadvantage by itself, something that mothers do not teach their daughters and fathers do not teach their sons. If someone could master aura reading it is far more useful to keep it a secret. It is speculated that somewhere between a million and a billion people use it in day to day life on Earth.
The writer is clearly missing something deep, but you can't figure out what it is. Magic is marginalized too much on Earth for something so simple to be so accessible and magical. The whole thing gives you more of a headache than learning aura sight does. The author is probably just stupid.
Aura sight can usually tell someone with magical power from someone without it. They glow brighter and usually more intensely of a smaller band of colors. This is hardly a perfect test. Someone could glow brightly or singularly for any number of reasons, and magic users are rare. Many casters can even manipulate their auras. Learning more subtle tricks of the aura, to see a potential caster or cold read, will take much longer.
Bar Harbor, Maine- July 17, 14: 07 EDT
You
think about a third of the people traveling through the town are mystically active. Thomas Morrow's head is still emotionally colored. Blue, green, and indigo burn brightly there, which strikes you as deeply disturbing. The lack of black energy surprises you more than anything else in the last few days.
Ethan's phone call to the payphone should have been impossible. Payphones are no longer capable of accepting phone calls, only making them. Organized crime and similarly nefarious people were clearly the people most likely to pickup from a payphone.
"Is this chaos magic or the regular kind?" You ask curiously.
"More a favor from a man who I would personally avoid naming under any circumstances. A man who would kill you if he heard I had used his name." Ethan sounds strangely serious.
"You have the weirdest friends," You say softly.
"He's not a friend at all. How is your vacation, Pet?" Ethan sounds a bit scared.
"Not bad. I have learned a lot and have a lot to share when I get back."
"You should get out of that place. I heard something bad is coming up from Salem. That town is not going to stay peaceful for long. I also have a bit of a job for you."
Anything that seems to be scaring Ethan Rayne seems like something to avoid. "What do you want me to do?"
"There is a woman in Hartford who recently had an auction for an unusual item that will complete a collection I have been making. I won the auction, and if you would pick it up on your way back it would save me a good deal of money to get someone I
trust to get the thing." Ethan is in a better mood now.
"What is it?" Something a dangerous wizard has been collecting has to be interesting.
"A cactus, or something that is enough like a cactus that you need an advanced degree to care about the difference."
You feel a small burst of disappointment. "You have a cactus collection?"
"Chaos, dear. If it always made sense I wouldn't bother." Ethan's voice sounds quite amused, throaty and pleased.
You suppress a giggle.
Happy Harbor, Rhode Island- July 18, 11: 06 EDT
You are taking a mildly circuitous route in the hopes of not being followed. The changes to traffic are what tip you off. The suddenness, the confusion, the panic. This is the second time you have been in a car during a supervillain attack.
A car comes swirling into view and crashes a few feet behind your own non-stolen car. This looks a great deal worse than Icicle Jr. on the bridge.
[X] You run as fast as you can, throwing up distractions as you move.
[X] You need to get closer to the unknown threat. If you do that you can actually fight.
[X] You consider your options, and turn the ground into the same low friction hole as you often drop enemies into. You will dig deeper than he can follow, keep going in some random direction, and then come back up. That
might work.