Silver Insanity

"So... do you want this entity or just psionic entities in general?" Wyllt will ask Alys... "The second one is a little easier, but might give some false positives. Of course, it would be more usable."

"Entities in general should be sufficient - at least so far, there don't seem to be large numbers of such running around - and might help if it tries to cloak its nature in some way. I'm not expecting guards to be able to deal with this level of threat, after all; the utility I'd intended is simply constraining what it can do without being noticed and brought to our attention." Alys turns to Asai, "Unless you have some better notion?"

Asai scratches behind one ear in thought before replying. "I think in time a two-tiered approach might be best, with the majority of guards carrying simple detection devices, tuned for psychic entities as well as select types of magic, with a select number of guards trained to discern whether anything found is of import or not... While it might of use on a regional or district basis to know what sorts of minor magical shenanigans are going on, by and large the city as a whole likely does not need to concern itself with such. That being said, at the moment it is likely best to focus on the current problem and develop this notion further once we have a trained number of guards that can be used as seeds for further endeavors."

((OOC note - Asai is moderately annoyed at Wyllt but isn't writing him off as hopeless just yet. She's steadily ramping up her force of personality, so to speak, and is curious to see how much his dismissing her as inconsequential is habit or actual mindset. The sooner he "breaks" and goes "Wait, you really aren't a familiar, are you?" the less annoyed with him she might be.))

"Well, we have enough of an idea to get working on a few prototypes... I think we can have a few for your guards by tomorrow morning." He thinks, "That way we can make sure they're sensing the right thing. Do you have a proper psychic impression of it?"

"We have a few people who might still be afflicted; we also have a way to call it up. Between those, I'd expect testing such devices to be relatively straightforward. And tomorrow morning should be soon enough; if you can have a few by then, I don't think we'll need to send anyone out to a fast time shadow just to make the initial test run."

"Which leaves us with the question of training Asai's second tier of guards. I presume you have some method for assessing the potential of an untrained candidate; how easily can that be ramped up to allow for finding and training, say, a hundred guards to the level of competence needed to perform a basic analysis?"

"If you want it targeted, I need at worst a second hand impression of it. Otherwise, we can simply make psionic detectors. They'll be more generally useful." Wyllt nods and ponders, "Second tier sorcerers? or just using the enchanted equipment? I was thinking something you'd wave and would beep if it encountered the entity. That wouldn't take more than a twenty minute seminar."

"General detectors should be good, yes. Though I'd prefer a more subtle activation than a beep; perhaps a change in color or pattern? There's no need to simply give away the fact that we've detected such an entity, especially when the one we're worried about could easily destroy an entire squad of guards if it believed its goals had already been compromised."

"Second tier would need to be sorcerers, yes, or have much more complicated equipment and training to match. Initially we can simply have any contact reported to the nearest amberite - or mage guild member - but that will scale poorly; the purpose of the second tier is to be able to screen out false positives or other situations that don't require such high-level attention."

"Training sorcerers would take perhaps ten or twenty years, unless you wish to conscript the entire trade force..." He will pause, and look at Alys, "That's not what you're asking is it? It'll be easier to work on items they could use."

"For a trigger, I could make it silent... so that an external operator gets the alarm instead of the one doing it. That would prevent telepathy from alerting the entity, but telepathy doesn't work that well here. Or any kind of signal the guards could be made to identify. We can work that out in prototyping."

"At least as I'd envision it," Alys glances at Asai, "the second tier is more of a short term goal than an immediate one; a few decades to get that done right is perfectly acceptable. Of course, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't consider more complex items, either instead or in addition; as I mentioned earlier, arcana is not currently one of my strong points, so I'll let you and Asai work out the details there."

"If nothing else, conscription would be something to avoid because it would cause disturbance and bring attention to our actions, which would rather defeat much of the purpose of all this. I just find it wise to keep future possibilities in mind for present actions, so as to try and minimize wasted effort or painting myself into a corner from which it's more trouble to get out of than it would have been to avoid..."

((Yes, the last part of the last sentence is somewhat barbed, she's still prodding at Wyllt.))