Virtuosa

Archive I

//Restricted-Access Item: [Conference #1] Date: ■■/■■/1100 [Participant Checklist] Rhodes Island Human Resources Department: Present Rhodes Island Medical Department: Present Spire of Grace, Leithanien: Present Institute of Telepathy, Leithanien: Present The Lateran Curia: Present Notarial Hall, Laterano: Present [Inquiry Footage] [Resume Transmission] [05:17/05:35:36] 'In light of our collective understanding of the concerned party, I suggest we omit the procedural introduction and move directly to today's inquiry proceedings.' 'The Empresses' Voice is still reviewing the report on the subject. Is the Notarial Hall in such in a rush?' 'Does Leithanien require that report to understand the subject?' '[COUGHING]' 'We have three hours reserved for our initial conference. Abide by the agreement, Federico—the Empresses' Voice has the right to read through the report first.' 'Three hours. I will begin timing.' 'This conference is being held by the Rhodes Island Human Resources Department. Additionally, Amiya will be present to assist us in our understanding of the subject's Originium Arts.' 'How soon we meet, Miss Amiya. With her present, maybe you'll all rest a little easier around me. 'But of course, I know you won't.' [07:38/05:35:36] [Pause Transmission] [Conference Log: attachment #2: Opinion from the Institute of Telepathy] ...... If we adopt the theory put forward by several interviewees in the early-stage investigation reports concerning Virtuosa, then the Arts she grasps could be said, in essence, to 'magnify' others' emotions to the point of 'urging' them to take impulsive action, which leads to our falling into the easy trap of lumping it in with other mental Arts—or as we would categorize them in Leithanien, 'telepathic-perceptual'—thus considering it either a simple illusion-/mirage-based construct, or a form of so-called 'mind control.' However, the fact of the matter is that Virtuosa's Arts are exceedingly rare. Given our as-yet-insufficient study of her type of Originium Arts, it's no wonder we might have misjudged its effective mechanisms, and hence arrived at an erroneous conclusion. ...... Of all the investigation reports, a 1092 Lateran Notarial Hall case file logs the greatest detail, and serves as our most useful reference. Within, the author Federico generalizes Virtuosa's Arts as an 'empathetic expansion,' presumably owing to his Lateran familiarities. From there, we conjecture something most interesting: that Virtuosa's unique Arts may well be the result of Sankta empathic abilities acting in concert with telepathic-perceptual Arts. Based on this hypothesis, we launched further research into her Arts with the assent of multiple conference parties, herself, and the test subjects. ...... In the course of our research, we carried out both individual and multi-person tests. We have only made a brief summary in this report; detailed test logs and participant feedback will be recorded elsewhere. In individual tests, when Virtuosa performed music using her Originium Arts, we picked up both the music and the subject's emotional impulse in a coinciding frequency range on three separate detectors. She was seemingly able to 'perceive' this coinciding range, and use Arts to bring about some sort of 'resonance' effect—this resonance was not limited to the subject and the music, but affected the caster as well, i.e. Virtuosa's own emotional impulses (see attachment #3). In multi-person tests, Virtuosa demonstrated to us another mode of her Originium Arts—the effect she displayed during Das Kaiserinnensfest, and one of pertinent interest to all parties at the conference. She had three subjects experience simultaneous emotional resonance (see attachment #6); the concrete manner in which she achieved this is something we still haven't ascertained. ...... [Conference Log: attachment #4: Subject #1: Mrs. ■■■■■] Without personally undergoing it, I fear one could hardly know how Virtuosa's Arts acts upon her 'subjects,' much like how the Sankta have a limited ability to explain to others just how their empathy works. As a researcher of consciousness and cognition, I've always been fond of likening the human consciousness to a lake. Our typical actions and motivations are merely the scenery mirrored in its surface; the thing we call the subconscious, no more than the fins and pebbles some meters under. We often take the existence of the lake for granted, forgetting that we have each drop of water to thank for begetting it—each moment of sadness and triumph, each moment of thought and feeling—as they pour into this grand lake and become one with it. Thus we observe and see only a great body of water, not the minute, endless trickles. Virtuosa's Arts are able to separate and distinguish the water back into those constituent trickles. Under the effect of her Arts, every depth of our consciousnesses, including those we've long forgotten—our buried or deliberately hidden memories—are given an emphasis they've never known. Such memories are usually associated with the strongest emotions stirred by the melody itself. They float to the surface on their own, and cause us to reconsider the manner in which the lake of our consciousness is. We sometimes underestimate on how real a level such reconsideration changes our behavior, and influences our judgment. That said, after undergoing today's experiments, Virtuosa's Arts have had me find that merely analogizing to 'a lake' is altogether insufficient to describe the breadth of human consciousness, or to account for the grand billows that her music can stir within it. As such, 'the sea of consciousness' may be a more apt metaphor. [Outcome of Meeting] Joint deliberation by all convened parties concludes that the functional mechanisms by which Operator 'Virtuosa's' Arts can work are as yet unclear, and still of inestimable risk. Therefore, per agreement she is to be transferred to Rhodes Island to await further observation and study. Virtuosa will continue to require supervision while at Rhodes Island: all conduct will be subject to consistent scrutiny, anything spoken must be logged, and she is forbidden from performing anything without authorization. [Classified Log] Their hypothesis at the conference was correct. Virtuosa's Arts can stir people's innermost and most significant memories, which then arouse some given state of mind, thus forming emotions. However, she cannot, by her own will, alter the memories reawakened in people when they hear her music. Nor can she show them, or put them through, emotions or experiences that have never existed. She cannot make the sad laugh heartily, nor turn despots merciful. The great power exhibited by her Arts is a resonance between music and a person's awakened ego. Virtuosa herself has long been aware of this: she has not once attempted to invert another's nature through her music. Not for helplessness, but for wisdom.