The persona that you made only copies your body. But you need it to act like you, too.
But like they say: There's an app for that. "Noscĕre mente alius."
You turn the page to the third spell in the book and double check the ingredients and instructions.
A strip of copper, a strip of zinc, a drop of quicksilver. Two small pocket mirrors and a steel-nib pen.
You had to run around all over town to find someone who would sell you a small bottle of mercury, and you wound up getting it "under the counter" at a gun shop of all places. The steel-nib pen, though, turned out to be the most expensive item. All told, it cost you almost $100 to get the supplies to make even one of the things, but you had to buy them in such quantities that you're in no danger of running out any time soon.
You cut off a strip of copper and a strip of zinc from the rolls that you bought. You lay the copper atop one of the pocket mirrors (the spell did not specify "pocket mirror", but that's the size you bought and it's a size that works) and carefully dribble out a single drop of mercury atop it. You cover it with the strip of zinc, and then lay the other mirror—mirrored side down—atop the zinc to make a kind of sandwich. This "sandwich" you set on the sigil.
The book also gives two sets of runes. The first you scratch into the back of mirror with the steel-nib pen while pressing the layers of metal onto the sigil. The stack hisses malevolently as you copy the runes, but it ceases abruptly—and the runes you wrote vanish—once you've made the last stroke. You remove the topmost mirror and pluck up the results.
It's made a metal strip with a silvery shine, about an inch wide and five inches long. (Always it will have these dimensions, so long as the metal strips have been at least that big.) It is very thin and flexible, more like paper than metal, but with more heft. It fits comfortably in the cupped palm of your hand.
Now comes the tedious part: carving the other set of runes into the strip.
This is long and tiring work, for you have to press the pen deep into the metal for each stroke in order to make an indentation. But the metal doesn't like to be indented, and you have to work each stroke hard, over and over again, before the metal yields. Even then, more than half the time, the stroke fades away after you've moved on to the next, so that you are constantly having to go back and scratch lines where you had already scratched some. Nearly three hours pass before you have completed what the book calls a mens.
As with a persona, you have to lay yourself flat before dropping the mens onto your forehead. And as with a persona it conks you out for ten minutes as it copies your brain, you sleep for ten more after it has reappeared on your forehead. When you do wake, the strip flutters away. When you pick it up again, the runes have vanished have been replaced by your name, which seems to float in ghostly blue, roman all-caps just above the surface of the metal, like a hologram.
It freaked you out, the first time it happened. It knows my name! you thought. Well, it had better, if it's going to copy your brain. On the reverse of the page (which turned loose when you laid the first of the things across the sigil) there was but a single sentence of Latin: Scire mentem alterius, which your preferred online browser rendered as "to know the mind of another."
So the thing has your memories. More than that, it even has your personality traits, and tastes and dislikes, and a lot of your talents, too. Anyone who wears this thing will remember everything that you can remember, will know what you know, and will be to imitate your mannerisms. They will like what you like, and dislike what you like (although, in your experience, these feigned likes and dislikes can be easily overridden if you concentrate hard enough), and will even be able to execute the kind of mental gymnastics that you can execute.
They won't look like you when they do this, though, because they won't look like you. They'll only be able to think and act like you, while still being able to think and act like themselves when they want.
Just as removing a mask knocks you out, removing a mens knocks you out too, and it is removed using the same gesture and formula as removing a mask. And, like with a mask, you cannot wear your own mens but you can update it by putting it back on again, so that it will start "remembering" all the stuff that you did after making it. You can also give yourself its memories. You lend your mens to a friend who needed to use your brain on a math quiz, and when he gave it back you put it on. When you woke, you "remembered" going to his class and sitting in his desk and taking the math quiz; in fact, you remembered almost everything up to the moment that sat down to pull it off again. The odd part was that, although you remembered doing things, you didn't remember any thoughts or feelings. You only remembered the actions.
Well, now you have a persona of yourself, and you also have a mens. They can be worn together by someone else, by putting one to the forehead and one to the face. Then they will look just like you, and be able to act just like you. It would be more convenient, though, if they could be attached to each other.
* Note: If wearing a mask and a mens that are not glued together, they must be removed separately. The mask will be the first to come off, followed by the mens.
* Note 2: It is possible to set a blank mens upon someone wearing a mask if the mask is not attached to a mens and there is no mens already mounted on the person. In that case, the blank mens will sink into the person, copy their mind, and return, exactly as if they were not wearing a mask.
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author