Desmond’s Climb: Seeing Things

[aldersprig]

First: Slaves, School
Previous: Kayay's Story

🗝️

So, do you know about this stairway? It was the seventh or eighth phrasing Des had tried of the same question. They were already in their next class, and his collar was not talking to him.

This was tricky, because it was supposed to be a class on clairvoyance and other scrying.

Could you at least help me with this… “Could you give me a hand with this class?” he asked weakly. “I’ll stop asking about the other thing. I will. Just please help me with this class.”

“Desmond, is it?” Their teacher, a tall and impressive person with dark skin and short curly hair woven with wire the same silver as their collar, paused by Desmond’s desk.

“Des is fine. I - sorry. My collar is annoyed with me.”

read on…

Comments

[clare_dragonfly]

Collar rapport class is so bad that it's even known for doing the opposite of its purpose?! Why haven't they gotten rid of that teacher yet? Is this a Snape/Trelawney situation, and if so, can Desmond meet Dumbledore?

Love Cataleb's answer.

[aldersprig]

Dumbledore would be a very interesting question in this world...

[kelkyag]

Re: trapped stairs. If some of the traps are mechanical (or electronic, or otherwise have hardware support), then being able to look ahead or under or maybe even inside if they're hollow could be useful. For stairs with strictly magical traps, one'd need to be able to see more than one can with the unaided eye (see magic, or ...?), not just on the far side of an obstacle. That may well be within the scope of clairvoyance and related skills, but that isn't obvious from the description & sample exercise.

Checking dead drops or similar message-passing sites. Collecting information from field agents or scouts at scheduled times and/or places. Finding things, if targetting doesn't have to be to fixed places. Medical and dental checkups & diagnostics. Same for machinery, architecture, infrastructure (and follow up with repair, or sabotage). Spying (though one imagines it can be blocked). Security & surveilance, if it can show ongoing action & be sustained rather than being snapshot-only. Working in darkness (inside of the box is probably dark?). Peeking in the oven without collapsing the souffle. Prospecting. Checking boxes against packing lists. Looking for dangerous low rocks, or shipwrecks. ...

I want to hear what the collars have to say -- I bet there are some good stories behind some of their lists. :)

(I was going to complain that calling Cataleb a thief on the basis of one bit of safecracking snark was a bit of a leap, but no, he swiped the collar deactivation device ...)