Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

«That’s strange,» Zorian said innocently. «The matriarch told me that no flimsy human magic could shield me against her if she was determined to get me, but here you’re telling me there is a spell I could learn to make myself completely immune to psychic powers.»

[Ah, well, you see…] Novelty fumbled. [She was actually right because, because those are totally different things, yes? A shield is one thing — we can totally batter it down or bypass it. If you take yourself off the Great Web, though, it’s like you aren’t there at all! You first need to sense a mind to connect to it, and if you can’t connect to it—]

«I get it,» Zorian interrupted. «No telepathic link, no aranean mind magic. And you can’t connect to something you can’t sense telepathically. Hmm, clearly the creator of Mind Blank knew a thing or two about psychic powers — it sounds like the spell is designed specifically to defeat them.»

[The idea isn’t that revolutionary,] Novelty grumbled. [A sufficiently skilled psychic can disconnect from the Great Web with some effort. It’s called ‘going dark’. It’s a pretty shady skill, though, mostly used by assassins, thieves and saboteurs. Anyway, the problem isn’t just the Mind Blank — it’s the fact that any mage powerful enough to cast it is also powerful enough to take on the entire aranean Web all on their lonesome. We have ways of dealing with people like that, but I totally can’t tell you because the others would have me dismembered if I said anything about it — since, you know, secret defenses and stuff.]

«Right,» Zorian said. He had no intention of creating problems at home for Novelty, so he wouldn’t pursue that topic further. Their super-secret defense plans probably boiled down to ‘collapse the entire tunnel on top of them’, anyway. «So Mind Blank is a psychic skill translated into a spell. Not that surprising, I guess — mages love taking abilities of magical creatures and turning them into spells for their own use.»

[Really?] Novelty asked. [But I thought human magic is so good that there is nothing you can learn from others. The matriarch is always talking about how amazing your magic is and how no one can match it…]

«No, that’s completely wrong,» Zorian said. «Mages of Ikosian tradition — which is virtually every mage you’re going to encounter — are pretty much all about taking other people’s magic and making it your own. The entire system of structured magic is specifically designed to be expanded upon as needed. It’s true that we rarely find something worth learning among other magical traditions these days, but that’s mostly because we already stole and traded for everything that was worth taking.»

[That’s… not quite the story I was told,] Novelty admitted.

«Don’t feel too bad — most humans also think our entire magical tradition sprang fully-formed in the early days of the Ikosian Empire,» Zorian said. «But back to our conversation about mental defenses. You said an aranea could batter down or bypass defensive magic other than Mind Blank. Does that include you personally?»

[Of course! Who do you take me for?] Novelty protested. [If I couldn’t fight telepathically, I’d have been devoured while still at the hatchery!]

Zorian blinked. «What, seriously? As in, actually get eaten or…?»

[Err, no, not literally eaten. We haven’t let the hatchlings eat each other ever since… err, actually, let’s not talk about that. It was just a figure of speech, that’s the important bit. Anyway!] Novelty hastened to change the subject. [I don’t know how it works among humans, but newborn aranea are confined to the hatchery during the first few months of their existence. There are usually a lot of us, and we’re all cooped up in this tiny boring room with nothing to do but pester the caretakers for stories and pick fights amongst each other, and the caretakers don’t like it when the hatchlings fight physically with each other. They are a lot more lenient about… experimenting… with our psychic powers, though. A bit of telepathic roughhousing is to be expected, so you pretty quickly learn the basics of defending your mind.]

Zorian tried to imagine the scenario Novelty just described and abandoned that train of thought with a shudder. He made a mental note to avoid being near aranean hatcheries at all costs, just in case the issue ever popped up in the future.

«That’s… interesting… but not quite what I was asking. I asked about countering defenses, not defending yourself,» he said finally.

[You can’t win a fight by only defending,] Novelty scoffed. [I don’t really understand this weird divide between mental attacks and defenses you insist on. Striking back is a crucial part of any worthwhile defense. Even a weak counter-attack forces your opponent to spend some time and focus on their defenses and weakens their own attack.]