A Deception of the Senses

[Jannik Morlandt]

If it did anything to his ego to be training more senior knights from the get-go as his first students within days of being accorded the title of Knight, before he'd taken on a single padawan, it didn't show. In reality, the simple fact was that Jannik Morlandt didn't really have an ego to speak of.

He'd never been concerned with whether or not he was better, but moreso that what he was doing was good and right, that he was bettering others while improving himself, and it was never more important to be assured of that than it was now. Never had his intentions been called more into question, by himself, in his own mind. He was sure and unsure at the same time.

How could he even know he would succeed? Furthermore, what exactly was he expecting to accomplish? A sigh, dismissive of his own thoughts, hissed softly out from between his teeth, and he continued to prepare for the upcoming lesson, finishing counting out the deck of sabacc cards in his hands before shuffling, reshuffling, and slipping the deck back in its box. This was one of the things that his own master had used in teaching him how to mentally influence and deceive others, and he still considered it a good prop.

[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

She had been wondering for a long time. She had read about it and she had suspected it but she had no concrete evidence. Back before her time at the academy there had been times when her will had been echoed in the words of those around her. At times it had been terrifying. Their calm and casual stare as they had repeated her every word only to snap out of it moments later and act as if it had never happened. At the time it had been beyond creepy, but now...

Kana had read about the ‘Mind Trick’ many times and each time it had struck her as eerily similar to what she had been able to do. She had looked for people who knew how to do it but never found anyone. Granted, her search hadn’t been very thorough but it was the thought that mattered. To eventually have found out newly-knighted [member="Jannik Morlandt"] had the ability and will to help her had her smiling like an idiot. The day finally came and she made her way to the chamber he’d told her to meet him in.

“Knight Morlandt.” Kana bowed. “I hear congratulations on your Knighthood is in order.”

She gave him a smile and couldn’t help looking at the deck of cards in his hand. What was that about? The same part inside of her that had her smiling like an idiot wanted to force her into an excited ‘Oooooo’ but she held it back. There was no reason to ruin the first teacher-student impression and have him think of her as some over-excitable padawan after all.

 

[Jannik Morlandt]

Hearing today's student come in, a faint smile painted itself on his face, and he slipped the boxed deck back into the 'bag of tricks' he'd accumulated between his supposed life before the Jedi, and since. Things like the deck of sabacc cards that had somehow stowed away in his quetarra case - a quetarra he hadn't played in too long - and the handheld holoprojector that had come into his possession through some strange stroke of drunken luck... during a game of sabacc, no less.

"Thank ye, Knight Truden. It... ah admit, it still feels strange, an' yet, no different," he bowed in kind, with his words, "So, ah think ye might know something already about th'Mind Trick, given th'message ye sent me."

He slipped his hands in pockets hidden in his robes. He got the feeling... and that thought trailed off as his blue eyes settled on the face of [member="Kana Truden"]. He'd tracked enough of the mannerisms of his own master to know the markers of jubilance and excitement, despite this one's valiant attempts to subdue it.

"So... tell me what ye know, an' any encounters ye might've 'ad with this, before ye burst, lass."

The faint smile on his face grew ever so slightly.

 

[Kana Truden]

Her barriers were about to burst. To not let the impending flood of rambling washover the man too quickly the excited little woman took a deep breath, and another, and another. Her cheeks puffed up as she exhaled one last time and she slowly opened her mouth to speak.

“Well,” She tried holding it back. It didn’t work. “I can’t say I have actually seen it properly myself. I mean, I may have but I don’t really know because I don’t really know what the mind trick is if you know what I mean? I mean, it could be anything, but if it is the thing I think it is then…”

She took a fourth deep breath to contain herself. Memories of her pre-Order times had been considerably more blurry than she’d remembered them being. No pain or sorrow, just bland memories that felt less important these days. Maybe that was progress?

“Before I joined the order, before I knew about the force there were times when I had been able to talk to people and they would echo every single thing I said. Most of the time it was intoxicated people, people who wasn’t fully there mentally. They would look at me with this look as if they were calm yet as if they felt nothing at all.” She seemed to be doing the same as she retraced her memories of it. “They always repeated everything I said in a kind of eerie echo and sometimes they even did what I said, but most of the time they simply shook it off.”

“So, I've looked it up on regular occasion and found the similarities between what you're teaching and that thing I did to be a bit similar.” Kana shrugged. “Except for that I think it’s a quite handy skill to have available, of course.”

Well, that was quite the mouthful of information. Hopefully she didn’t forget or leave something out of it.

[member="Jannik Morlandt"]

 

[Jannik Morlandt]

There was a more untamed wildness to [member="Kana Truden"]'s energy, perhaps what he might've expected Kira to be like when she was more inexperienced as a Jedi... but that made him think - he didn't know whether the blonde Lorrdian master had always been a Jedi, or if she'd had some form of life and had come to them as he had, older with 'normal' life experience under her belt.

"Seems ye hae a pre-existing talent for this, Knight Truden. Ah, but thar is more to it than tha'!"

His face became lightly sombred.

"It's a bit of a grey area, further on, an' worse. This ken go beyond mere suggestion... d'ye know tha' of which ah speak?"

After his own apparent ease with this in learning it and the discovery of latent talent in something connected with a supposedly dead sect, the matter had weighed on his mind with some measure of concern, so he had went to the archives to do more reading to inform himself of where this could go. If it had been that easy for him, he felt he had to be careful that he didn't just slip into the employment of something less justifiable. It was his and her responsibility as Jedi to be aware that many Force-given abilities had another, darker side, and to be diligent so as not to stray into such uses. It was said, after all, that once one starts down the dark path that it was harder to go back, the further down one went.

 

[Kana Truden]

With the barrage out of the way and with a response from her teacher she thought on what he had said. There was more to the ‘mind trick’ than just persuading people. She had to admit she didn’t expect as such, or maybe that wasn’t what he was saying at all. Her tutor did mention a kind of gray area. A part where right and wrong gets muddy.

It was about the application of a mind trick. At least that’s the point she focused on; the gray zone of things. Her face scrunched up somewhat as she focused on it maybe a bit too much. It was a warning after all, at least it felt like it. As if there was the line between when the trick would be called for. She could imagine circumstances but just for reference it’d probably be best to ask.

“Is it like telepathy?” A very vague question. She rubbed her forehead for a second as she tried to rethink the question. “What I mean is that if used incorrectly you could cause serious harm on another person’s mind? You gotta be careful to not go too far with things.”

That felt wrong as well.

“Or are you simply saying that there is more to it than influencing other people’s behavior and actions?”

[member="Jannik Morlandt"]​

 

[Jannik Morlandt]

"What ah'm saying is ye ken go beyond mere influence intae exacting utter control, against the will of th'subject. Be wary of thoughts pulling ye to better make th'subject do as you wish or understand your intentions. Tha's mind control."

He breathed out, a heavy sigh. After a moment, he recovered a mild, cordial smile.

"Mainly, there are two ways we as Jedi make use of th'o'erarching ability of Mind Trick - th'first being basic suggestive influence as we discussed, an'th'other being illusion. Both are deceptive an' involve influencing others tae perceive or believe what ye wish them to. Influence, not control, is th'key."

He picked up the boxed deck of cards, looking at the beauty of the case, then glancing at [member="Kana Truden"] again.

"How're ye with sabacc?"

OO: Apologies for the absurdly long wait!

 

[Kana Truden]

The shake of her head in stunned silence was all she could bring herself to do. Kana would never exact utter control, and especially not against the will of her subject. Hell, she wouldn’t even exact control over those who were willing either.

So the important thing was to mind your limits and actions which to be fair sounded just about right. To make sure that it was all free will and that your own actions merely influenced them. At least that’s what she gathered from the small lecture. Well, he did outright state such a thing so she couldn’t really claim herself the brightest student to think of it herself.

Then came the question. “I haven’t played sabacc for a very long time. There hasn’t been a time for it, really.”

Her eyebrow perked up. “Why?”

[member="Jannik Morlandt"]

 

[Jannik Morlandt]

A ghost of a smile crossed his lips at her question.

"When ah learned this from me own master, a sabacc deck like this," he held up the case of cards, "was wha' she used, and ah still find it a verrah fitting way tae teach it, all these years later."

He slipped the preshuffled deck from the case, setting the case aside, and shuffled the deck a few more times for good measure.

"We never played sabacc then, but th'way th'cards work lends well tae th'task at 'and."

That smile appeared again, a wee bit more pronounced.

"Kira's lesson was a fair bit more involved - th'lass was gifted with th'trickery of broad enough illusion tae conceal herself, whereas ah ken best see through it'all, as we found out," he admitted, then - "So, Knight Truden, what d'ye think? Shall we see what th'cards ken do for us?"

[member="Kana Truden"]