A Jaded Life

Chapter 1350

With three test subjects, my experiments went a little faster than before. Especially after they realised that cooperation was their only option, though it took them a while to reach that conclusion. Initially, only the one who had instantly submitted to my presence, or maybe my power, was willing to cooperate, even quite eager to do so.

That one, who introduced herself as Lisa to me, was exceedingly eager to please, readily spying on the other two without any prompting on my part. It took me a bit of time to figure out her exact motivation, and ultimately, I only managed to read it from her mind, mostly because it was such a simple thing.

She wanted to be protected and was, quite frankly, willing to do anything to gain the protection of someone sufficiently powerful. She regretted having left Lorgar and his merry band, mostly because she wanted to stay with her social circle, who were all horrified by the events in the Blessed City but didn’t blame Sunna. It took Lisa a bit of time to realise just how difficult the winter was without the larger community to help, and by that point, getting back to Lorgar and his group was impossible. So, she had been stuck with her friends toiling away and going hungry more often than not, until she suddenly woke up in a comfortable bed with modern amenities in the next room and a stocked pantry. Once I was introduced into the picture as the one providing these comforts and the security that went with them, she completely fixated on me, becoming aggressively submissive, as contradictory as that seemed. She wanted to be used, to be useful, to prove her worth as my tool, so she wouldn’t be discarded.

Including spying on her compatriots, as she demonstrated during our first session. When we were alone, she immediately started to tell me everything I might want to know about her two compatriots, starting with their names, Alice and Xander, before focusing on the things they had said after I returned Xander to the apartment. It was interesting to hear things from her perspective, even if I doubted she was aware that I already knew about their conversations. I hadn’t removed my scrying constructs; I would be stupid to give up that advantage, so I knew that Xander was incredibly intimidated and scared due to his brief stint in the darkness of my cells.

Alice, on the other hand, wasn’t as scared as he was, but she was also completely aware that trying to fight me would be foolish. Just the absence of a door in their apartment made her realise they were completely at my mercy. They couldn’t leave the place without my help, and she was intelligent enough to recognise that the food wouldn’t last forever. She tried to knock on the walls to find out if any of the walls were thin or hollow, looking for some way that might allow them to escape, but the seal I had placed over the tunnel back to my shelter was thick enough to be unrecognisable with that method. If she had any Earth Magic, she might have been able to feel that the wall was only about a metre of solid rock, but with a simple knock, it sounded just like the rest of the solid stone walls. Impossible to overcome, unless one had magic or heavy equipment.

It was quite amusing to observe the dynamic, though I was pleased that the result of it was positive for me. Namely, I had three cooperative test subjects, even though their cooperation was motivated by different motives. One was afraid of me, one wanted to please me, and one recognised the inevitability of my work, making the somewhat informed choice to go along with it, instead of being forced into it.

What I hadn’t expected was that the three different motivations allowed me to work differently within their minds. The more willing they were to cooperate, the easier it became to manipulate their perception and access their memories. When working on Lisa, I could readily draw up memories, and she didn’t even notice. Out of curiosity, I ran a few tests to manipulate her memories: I told her something, then changed her memory of our conversation, and asked her what I had told her later. She never even recognised that I had altered her memory; she simply went along with the new one.

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And from there, I started to experiment with earlier memories, asking her about experiences I had seen in her memories, taking notes on her answers, then erasing the memory of our conversation, altering the memory in question, and repeating the conversation, getting new answers. A part of me was enjoying the sort of power I was wielding there, the ability to morph Lisa as I pleased, to turn her into anything I could ever want.

Out of curiosity, I started to test just how far I could push things in that regard, knowing the information stored in her memories was still interpreted by her Soul, which I had yet to mess with. That allowed me to make a few new discoveries, especially regarding how the Soul manipulated the person’s memories.

When I changed one of her memories, altering something as innocuous as her memory of a friend's skin colour, it caused a ripple effect. Suddenly, every memory with that friend was viewed through a slightly different lens, not some major change, but it was obvious. Excuses she had made, either for her friend or when said friend had been talking to others, were taken in a different context; her perception of that friend’s relationships, it all underwent a subtle but significant shift. It was both interesting and quite scary, so, obviously, I continued poking and prodding, never letting Lisa realise what I was doing, as I manipulated the memories she had about our conversations. While I had only worked on her for about two weeks now, I was curious to see just how far I could push things. How much could I twist and warp her mind until it snaps, and how would the cracks and breaks form? Maybe I should change her name, just to see what would happen. Would Xander and Alice be able to convince Lisa that her name was, well, Lisa instead of something else?

Or maybe I should turn Lisa into her middle name, just to see what memories her mind would conjure up to explain why her two compatriots were using it, instead of her first name. There were so many interesting ways I could poke her mind, and so many fascinating ways for it to react to changes, I couldn’t help but be fascinated.

Sadly, neither of the other two test-subjects was as pliant as Lisa. Alice was going along, but she was eternally suspicious, asking numerous questions about my experiments, trying to maintain her mental acuity as much as possible. I was fairly certain she had some affinity to Mind Magic, enough to make experimenting on her somewhat interesting, though I had already performed the vast majority of tests regarding that on Joshua, making most of that interest redundant. Sure, it was nice to have confirmation regarding my earlier findings, but I could hardly consider that a good use of a test subject.

Similarly, Xander was deeply disturbed by my experiments, even if I had never told them what I was doing. I just had them lie on their beds, relax and do nothing, while I sat next to their head, occasionally placing my hands on their temples. Mostly to keep them from realising what I was doing, so I made sure to ask them questions about completely fundamental magical processes. Given that the books I had left for them, they all assumed I was trying to teach them magic, and they ran with that assumption.

Curiously, both Xander and Alice showed more progress in their magical studies than Lisa did, though that might be due to the constant changes I made to Lisa’s mind. It was just so pliant, so fun to play with, it would be a shame to break it.

Due to that, I began to consider making her a Warlock if she didn’t break. Maybe not focused on Ice, as Waylon was, but wielding some other element, or maybe even without an element to focus on, just pure, unaltered Astral Power. It would be interesting to see what that would look like, and if there was one thing I could tell about her, it was that she was completely devoted to her comfort. Tying a powerful, magical ability to her loyalty to me would make her a completely loyal, utterly submissive creature, utterly amoral and willing to commit any atrocity I could ever ask for, just to please me and maintain her standing.

There were so many possibilities, I was almost disappointed when my attention was needed elsewhere. These three were strange, but experimenting on them was awesome.