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Anon had tracked down the human she had spoken to the other day and found out what all he did. The only nagging thought in her mind about him was that there really wasn't all that much of a record of him before he came onto the station less than a month ago. But that is a common issue with a lot the people on the station and has always been a source of annoyance for her. The station will have a record of what their name is, what planet they're from, what system they came from and when they arrived, but beyond that it doesn't really track anything. It's one of the reasons the Family likes the station, that unless explicitly asked for there is no way to track where someone was before that or if they were involved with any criminal activity. And it really isn't a high enough concern to go track his planet of origin to try and see what they could say about him anyway. But since coming onto the station he has done absolutely nothing out of line. The only thing that's even arguable from her jurisdiction is the fact that he'll frequently send out a Clay Doll of himself to go run errands, which means he's doing things on the station without a chip for the station to track. But it'd be more of a problem if he was moving the chip from him to the doll. She goes to his little side workshop he's frequently found in and has Mia stay outside. Who knows how fragile all of the equipment in there might be and she can't guarantee the little thing would behave the entire time. She sighs for a moment before heading in.

"So we meet again," Eric says as Anon walks into his back room. "What can I help you with?"

"You know a lot about Con magic, correct?" she asks.

"I would say so. I wouldn't call myself a master of it if I didn't know how it worked."

Anon sighs and readies herself to ask the question. She hates having to ask for help, far too used to being forced to fend for herself by a people who would take any sign of weakness as a reason to dispose of her. "Would you be able to train me on how to beat mental Con magic?"

"I cannot."

"Is it the cost?"

"No, it's a simple fact that beating Con magic of any sort is just a matter of finding and disabling the focus that is being used. There is no way that you can actually break a mental spell that's already in effect without disabling the focus. I suppose a strong enough telepath can see through most mental spells but I am not a telepath nor am I able to actually teach anyone on how to do that. Don't take me the wrong way. I'm not trying to be unhelpful. I'm merely saying that that is not a skill I can possibly teach. What I can teach, however," he says after seeing her reaction, "is how to detect when you're under the effects of a mental spell."

"Okay, sure," Anon shrugs, leaning against a table after making sure there's nothing she could damage from doing so. "Let's do that."

"Okay then, you are now under a mental spell," he says without even looking up from his tinkering but absolutely nothing has changed in what she sees.

"I'm being serious here," Anon complains.

"As am I."

"I'm not talking about the box," Anon gestures at the device that's triggering the Language of Intent spell in his workshop.

"Neither am I. Look, I don't need to change any of what you see to have you under the effects of a spell, or I could do something so simple that you would never notice like changing the color of my eyes or even your own eyes if you were to look in a mirror. Not that it would really do you a lot of good to just learn to recognize my own faults because a different user would have different mistakes. What I'm currently doing is calibration."

"Calibration," Anon repeats.

"Yup. I entered your mind and put you under an illusion as gently as I am able. Right now I'm making more and more noise with my spell, making it more and more obvious that you're under one. Once I can figure out how far I need to go before you can notice then I can begin training you on it. Training wouldn't even really interrupt my work all that much so wouldn't cost you too much. You'd just sit here and I put you under an illusion just at the bottom of the threshold you can pick up on. Eventually your mind will be able to recognize the sensation of being put under a mental spell a lot easier and your threshold will go down. Then I just keep slowly dialing it down further and further until you either can tell when I'm putting you under even the gentlest of touches or we find the limit of what your mind can detect. After that it's all on you."

"So where is the focus you're using on me now? I didn't see you make any sort of motion to even activate one. Or do you have it permanently active?"

"Permanently active mental spells are illegal. That box is the closest thing you'll ever get to one and that one is an exception in that you have to put a big giant sign you aren't allowed to alter that it's there. No, I have it stored on my person. But that's not the nature of this lesson. It is something I could teach but it isn't what you asked me to teach you. But that is for the most part the difference between a master and an amateur. I don't remember if I've said this before but I'm rather good at observation and behavior. I can tell exactly that you have a focus on your outfit. You make a very conscious effort to avoid touching one part of your outfit so as to not accidentally trigger it. It's very subtle but I know what to look for so it's as obvious to me as the sign for the box up there. It doesn't distort the fabric so it's likely only the trigger and the cell is elsewhere on your outfit, possibly several small strips linked by a runic configuration. Very elegant design if I'm correct. But this is what I was paid to teach people. Well technically I was paid to teach celebrities and actors on what tricks to do to not get caught using a focus. Now with a skilled amateur they hide the focus and then just make very subtle motions to try and activate it without it looking like they're doing anything. And for people who are not under any scrutiny that's perfectly fine. Masters use something like this," he says and a small black box flies towards Anon.

She grabs it and looks it over. It just looks like a small metal object. She doesn't see anything at all important about it or any way it can be manipulated. She even tries pressing into it a few times but can't get any sort of response. Eventually she just gives up and puts it down.

"That's not the focus I'm using on you, but it is the same kind. That one is for a commission for a politician that sought me out earlier, or at least they claimed to be one. I generally find it's to my benefit to not ask too many questions. If what I do is legal and they are paying, it is far less likely to get me into trouble to just do it and not press things. But for that trigger there is no risk of me accidentally activating it. There is a switch, but it's on the inside of the box. I can only activate it using Sym magic. If you're up against a master you can expect them to do similar. It's one of the reasons why I refuse to teach you how to beat them, because it's extremely difficult. If you're up against a master you have to try and reason out what's been changed, what details to trust and which to not trust because you will not see them use their focus, you likely won't know where it is and there is no way to just see through it unless you are a telepath, which I am not either."

She picks it back up and looks over the trigger a bit more before putting it back down. She does appreciate the craftsmanship of it and how difficult it'd be to find a focus like this on anyone. After a moment she can feel a slight tickle on the back of her neck.

"Ah, there we go. Finally found what you can notice. Not bad, all things considered. And now we can begin your actual training. I'll just dial it down just a bit to where you can just barely feel it. But then once you're used to it, I'll just dial down more and more."

"So what do you need me to do?" Anon asks.

"Really, whatever you want to be honest. This isn't something that requires any active participation on your behalf. I mean, when you're looking for it you will be more likely to detect it, but that just would affect how high I set the spell. This isn't anything that I will be able to do all in one sitting. I can do some work on it, let you get used to how it feels to be under Con magic so you can react if you're put under it later on. And if that's all you care about then you're free to leave at any time. Else if you do decide to come back for another session then you should probably bring something else to do at the same time if you are so inclined. Or sign up for my classes and you can spend the time working on some project of your own."

"I think I'll pass. I don't think it'd look good for the reputation of either of us to have the Head Guardian sitting in on the classes of an illusionist."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. If anything it would probably be seen as a legitimizing of what I'm trying to do. I'm here to teach about the form of magic and how it can be used in a benign or beneficial way. There may be some who are far too reluctant about seeing a Guardian. But there is absolutely nothing illegal about learning how to cast an illusion. I even have the permits for it all if you really want to see them."

"I know, I looked you up."

"Well that's nice of you. Though you probably should tell your familiar that it's okay to come on in. I highly doubt any good can come from her just staying outside my workshop with nothing to do."

"Are you sure that's going to be fine? Aren't you concerned she might go and accidentally destroy some of your equipment here?"

"It'll be fine. I've dealt with familiars before, I know how to handle them. And I also know that I'm required to inform you how I handle them. I will be keeping your familiar under an illusion. Not harmful in any way, mind. The entire illusion while she is in my workshop will be that anything that is fragile will seem to her as something very sharp and dangerous to touch. So long as your familiar is not of the type to just act out, which yours did not seem to be last time we met, it should be fine enough. She will actively avoid or put a barrier in front of anything fragile simply under the impression of not getting hurt."

"And you do this with all familiars?" Anon asks, "or just the half-sents?"

"Eh, all of them. Also do it to people who seem to be a bit too interested in touching my equipment. But even if told there that I have them under such an illusion there really isn't that much risk to my equipment. People are generally rather rational and prone to averting harm to themselves. Even if they logically know that it is not the case, if something looks sharp and feels sharp they'll avoid touching it, even if there is no threat to them."

"If you say so," Anon shrugs and then opens up the door and instructs Mia to behave.

And to the familiar's credit she did behave. She wasn't so much interested in touching everything or bouncing off the walls as being a room full of a bunch of new and unfamiliar objects. So while Eric continued to work on training Anon and working on some other projects Mia spent the time moving around and smelling everything in the workshop. Never close enough to touch but close enough to smell and look at. And seeing her reserve Eric actually eased off the illusion on her, though he didn't bother telling Anon of it.

Elsewhere in the station, Cerise moves over to her console and turns on the call, choosing to elect to sit in a chair. It has passed the time she's required to be in the diplomatic chambers and while getting dinner they had requested this meeting. She was expecting such a measure to be taken by them. Technically it isn't even what they wanted but it's what they have to agree to. The humans want to try and bring their cause forward and want her help doing it. But they weren't willing to talk to her about it openly in the council chambers because of the optics involved in trying to do so. So at least they aren't completely incompetent. But what they really wanted to do was to try and arrange for a meeting in person. Probably so that they could pressure her with numbers, not that that would help at all. She only ever wore the restrictor cuffs when she was having issues with controlling her power. As a part of the Council she is allowed far more platitudes than most anyone else on the station. Amongst these are full access to the Sym rings that course through the station and the ability to circumvent magic restrictions. Though she isn't really expected to ever fight, she is responsible for protecting the delegates in the event there is an attack on them in the diplomatic chamber hall. So for her to be able to handle a few humans that are not allowed weapons would be child's play for her. But she does have a policy in place for private meetings having to be done via a call and not in person. And it is important for her to be seen as unbiased in this regard.

Ret is, naturally enough, an exception, but that's because he's not only not a politician but also seeks her out on her way from one location to another, something she has little control over. He does still request calls, but those are only for more formal requests and aren't common. She activates her end of the call and three humans show up on the other end. She knows they would very much rather come in much larger numbers, but she only has the three receivers, and only because the Raeshael require that she does. Two females and one male. She knows for a fact the two females are not the dominant voices in their group. From watching them all run around it was always the males that were screaming the loudest at the other politicians. The females from the human delegations were mostly there for moral support. Most races don't care about gender politics, apparently humans still do. The two were most likely chosen to make their case because she is a female herself, not that that would have any real impact on her decisions. Her kind had long past done away with such silly notions as the two sexes being different in anything outside of sports and relationships, even before they split off from the humans. To her, it meant nothing to her if they sent a man or a woman, it was a silly notion to ever consider treating them differently.

"So what can I help you with?" she asks sweetly and politely.

"We're having trouble in getting the other delegates to listen to us," one of the two women say.

"I'm sorry to hear it. But I'm sure a lot of the other delegates have very busy schedules. Sometimes things like this can take a while before any real progress can be made without any imminent need," Cerise says in response.

"But you're in charge over all of the delegates," she continues. "We're extremely confident that if we could just get them to sit down with us and let us properly explain our situation to them. We were able to do this very same for the people of our own planets. But if we cannot get them to give us that time we'll never be able to make them see the truth. So we were hoping that you may be able to force them to listen to us."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news for you," Cerise shrugs, fanning her tails out a bit more, "but that's not how things work on this station. Yes, I do have the power to take over complete control over all activity, but this is more when there is an important situation that must be conveyed to all of the delegates at once. Things like threats to the station or their own safety. Things of urgent need that must be addressed immediately. But just giving one faction a larger voice is not one of those. Now if you had any sort of information that was absolutely needed to be brought to everyone's attention right away, I can pass this along, but just getting them to listen to you explain your case doesn't work on that. If anything, my job is more of a caretaker. If one of the delegates feels that there is someone that is doing something that makes them feel endangered for something they can send me a message and I'll step in to end the argument before it gets violent. So keep that in mind, that based on how you all have been behaving, if you come on too strong with the other delegates I'm far more likely to be stepping in to stop you rather than step in to help you get what you want. This isn't a place where you get what you want just because you want it. You need to be political about things and give people what they want in order to get what you want."

The three humans stare at her in almost fury. She can even hear one start muttering under his breath a lot of very bigoted obscenities regarding her species. Which is fine. She doesn't really care much for them either. It ultimately doesn't matter to her if they like her or not, only that they will obey her when she gives an order. When it comes to the delegates, she is effectively the law. What she says, goes and the Guardians and the station itself will back any decision she makes. They make a few more attempts at trying to persuade her to just as much effect and after only a few minutes into the call start storming out in outrage and frustration. With that done she closes out the call and then goes about informing the Guardians that the human delegation seem particularly incensed, just in case.