We spent no more than half an hour with the book before the ocelot smacked it closed with a paw and stepped away with a growl. She was clearly disgruntled and most likely had a bad headache. I put away the Thaumonomicon and hooted at her questioningly. A quiet meow was the only answer I got until I stepped up. The ocelot fixed with an angry glare and hissed. I tilted my head. She waved her paws at me, not really in a threatening motion but more dismissive. I spread my wings and flapped a few times. The cat just went back to lying on the ground and holding her head. She wanted some space for herself, which I decided to give.

Moments later, I was in the air and flying to my roost. My new one first, having a meal to clear out most of my stash. Then I returned to my old roost. This way, my new friend would be able to find me. I looked for a few stones and placed them on the floor of my trunk. Then I pulled out the Thaumonomicon once more and cleaned it of dirt. The forest floor was not the best place for a book. Luckily, this was a magic book and would not get damaged easily. It was time to read up on artificing and follow the trail that, hopefully, led to telepathy.

There definitely was something in this book on the topic, I was just lacking the prerequisite knowledge. The basics of artificing were, as I had already read about, infusion and alchemy. Both could be used to create new objects out of old ones and thinking about it, they did very similar things if in a differing process. Infusion brought aspects from a number of objects into another one, usually assisted by broken down essence. This essence was formed with alchemy. A magical oven would break down materials into their magical nature and create a liquid. This process could be simplified to boiling some water and melting down the objects in there. A magical cauldron was all that was needed for that, and I had one. And if you only needed base aspects, a few vis crystals would be enough to make an infused item. No complicated process needed, just a bit of magical understanding.

These most simple two crafting processes of magical items were the only ones I could reasonably utilize. I had no jars to hold liquid essence nor a runic matrix to make an infusion altar. That meant, I had to improvise. Most likely. Because, after reading on, the text dove into some complicated combination of all the methods. Making base items with the basic methods and then combining them with infusion seemed a staple of higher artificing. The thing that led me to believe I still had a chance to make what I wanted, was a specific object. A sort of engine, creating mechanical energy from a magical stimulus. The efficiency was terrible but apparently, it needed not a single magical material. Instead, I could make one with just a bit of focus and a nearby node. Any aspect would do, some of them being more effective, but there was a possibility to connect and draw power from the void through such a place.

I had freed up a node when I killed the monitor lizard, so I could go about my experiments without even disturbing the ocelot. Now I only needed to figure out what to make with the energy. Oh, and how to draw it disregarding the aspects the node had formed. Yeah, there was a lot of work to do.

I spent most of the next day resting before filling my stash up once again right after sundown. It would be far more productive to get to work with sated stomach and food to spare. I was thinking about paying another visit to my new friend but I did not want to appear too intrusive. We both had more of a loner lifestyle. Company was nice but I expected a wild feline to instinctively enjoy being alone. If she did want to meet, she knew where to find me.

So it was back to reading. So far I had seen trinkets that could store energy similar to a battery, a bracelet of sorts that could access the mind and make it easier to sort through memories and a revived brain one could use to store said memories. It lacked the soul to soul connection I considered necessary for actual telepathy, but it did go in the right direction. The next entry in my research built upon all three.

Thaumomnemonic Interface

The thaumomnemonic interface is the culmination of research into matters of the mind. It combines the capabilities of both the think tank and the memory bracelet to store and access thoughts, ideas, memories and anything else accessible within a sapient’s mind. It can even be used to access non-sapient’s memories, though the information will be strongly confusing for anyone attempting to parse it. The main purpose of this item is the effortless sharing of knowledge between peers. Different from the Thaumonomicon, any knowledge can be accessed without fulfilling the prerequisites. Beware! This does not prevent the accumulation of warp! Heavily disruptive knowledge should still be shared step by step to avoid overloading a student’s mind.

In order to create a thaumomnemonic interface, you will need to infuse a memory bracelet with a think tank. That alone is not enough, however. The interface requires access to the soul of its target, similar to the [Identify] Skill, which requires spiritus attuned essentia. To avoid harming the user by factually removing parts of their mind, tutamen is necessary. Last, but not least, a small amount of sensus to allow for reading of information. This is the most basic version of the thaumomnemonic interface and rather unwieldy. The device, in this form, is too large to transport without much difficulty and lacks the fine-tuning to prevent harming unprepared minds. For this, several modifications can be made.

If you want a more mobile module, you can go two ways. Either, you add an arcane levitator in the infusion process, making the device float. This also requires additional volatus essentia and reduce the stability of the process. The second option is to place it within a travelling trunk. Just make sure you have one of sufficient size.

To allow less-prepared minds the use of the thaumomnemonic interface, you will need to add additional protection. This can be achieved using a runic shield attuned to the mind only. Once you have made an object holding such a runic shield, you can provide it to your student for safe use of the interface. Another method is to add the runic shield directly to the thaumomnemonic interface. This will prevent you from regulating who accesses it, other than creating additional safety, for example through initial startup adjustments requiring the expertise of a skilled thaumaturge.

I have personally not had the need to use any of these methods, yet, but I can guarantee their effectiveness. The interface has served me well both in educating my apprentice and in sorting my thoughts. I also experienced a slight reduction in temporary warp when drawing memories of forbidden research into the thaumomnemonic interface.

This was a promising entry. I would have to consider some parts of it, especially the think tank. For one, it was the main reason for the interface’s size, but it also hindered the main use I wanted it for. By replacing the memory storing function with another soul-linking memory bracelet, or similar, I might be able to directly send my thoughts to another being. And maybe even read their minds? That seemed to be reaching a little far. The full effects were still up to debate. For now, I needed to make a memory bracelet. Or two. Another option to consider was modifying a bracelet to be able to send and receive thoughts, which then would allow telepathy as long as both parties were wearing the item. So many possibilities and I had not even started to think about the details.

A memory bracelet required a vis amulet, an object to store energy from nearby nodes, recharging automatically depending on how far and how large the closest node was. This needed to be modified to work with the mind instead of the aura, the energy nodes were giving off. And for a vis amulet, I needed to get vis crystals. And a bit of gold. Thaumium might work as well, but I had only a single ingot of that, which was rather small as well. I had about three times as much gold from my looting session. The kind of crystal I used did not matter very much for this step, but with the lack of gold, I needed to make sure this would work. I had an earth, poison and water node in the lizard’s cave and a water, destruction and trap node at the ocelot’s home. The latter was much more likely to work. Water and earth formed life which was only one step away from soul and then turned into mind. But the other side of soul was death, which was the combination of destruction and life.

The difference was not very large, to be fair, but with the amount of water mana being minuscule at best in the lizard cave, I decided against using it. This process would be difficult, so I wanted to prepare accordingly. And I would have to get the ocelot’s permission to stay near her den for a whole night, or maybe even multiple nights. This might be difficult, but it was for her benefit just as much as mine so I was confident it would work.

First, I got out a gold ingot. It was too large to use fully and I had to shape it after that as well. Which meant I was already stuck. I did not know how to work metal, and I was pretty confident heating it was somewhat necessary. Unless I could just shape it with my talons somehow. Gold was very soft. And this seemed to be very pure gold. My talon could press into it with the ingot just laying on the stone. What if I used [Strong Grip] on it? I tried, and it worked far better than I had hoped. The ingot deformed between my talons, gradually thinning. I had to take two short breaks but on the third try the small part I wanted to use finally popped off. The ingot was now a little pointy at the end but that did not stop me from putting it back in my storage.

The cut-off part was next. I had to form it into at least an approximate bracelet. Or maybe a ring or amulet would work as well. Important was, that it could hold a mana crystal. This was once again accomplished using [Strong Grip], though with a bit more care this time. First, I formed the metal into an approximate ball, then I started puncturing it with my talon. It took the rest of the night to get the metal into a somewhat acceptable shape. Anything more would have to be done once I found a suitable mana crystal. From there, I hopefully could get closer to making my very own telepathy amulet.